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MODELING MY LIFE 


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SCUDDER TO 


JANET 


MODELING MY LIFE 
eT ANET SCUDDER 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 


NEW YORK 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 


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, |  copyriGHT, 1925, By 
ee JANET SCUDDER 

| a copvricuT, 1925, By 
e THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY — 


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‘ oF] 


| PRINTED IN THE U, S. A 
THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY 
RAHWAY, N. J. f 


THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO MY FRIEND, 
NorvaL RICHARDSON, 


AT WHOSE SUGGESTION AND WITH WHOSE 
ASSISTANCE IT WAS WRITTEN 


Be = 


Pet ant 


CHAPTER 


I 
II 


CONTENTS 


TERRE HAUTE 
CHICAGO vIA CINCINNATI . 


Paris AND MacMonnles 


STRUGGLING wiTH NEw YorkK . 


FinpInc MYSELF . 

Tue Froc Fountain . 
FRIENDLY NEw YORKERS . 
WANDERINGS . ; ‘ 
War EFFORT 


LATER REFLECTIONS 


PAGE 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 


JANET SCUDDER To-pay . . . .  . Frontispiece 
JANET SCUDDER AT THE AGE OF THREE . 

JANET SCUDDER IN HER GARDEN IN Paris . 

JANET SCUDDER AT WorRK AT THE Wor p’s Fair, CHICAGO 


THE “WuiteE Rassits” IN THE HorTICULTURAL BUILDING 
AT THE Wor.p’s FAIR 


FREDERICK MacMonnles 1n His Stuprio, Paris . 
Wat FountTAIN 

Birp FouNTAIN 

SEAWEED FOUNTAIN . 


MacMownnles CRrivTiciZING THE WorK OF AMERICAN STu- 
DENTS . 


Portrait MEDALLIONS 

SEALS . 

First ARCHITECTURAL WorK Done IN NEw York . 
Froc FountAIN 

Boy witH Fisu 

Froc FountTAIN 

Wat. FountTAIN 

Ficutinc Boys 

Younc Diana . 

LittLte Lapy FROM THE SEA . 

SEATED PANn 

FisH Girt . 

SHELL FOUNTAIN k : 
JANET SCUDDER IN HER Stuprio, Paris 


[ vii | 


102 
103 
134 
134 
135 
135 
150 
151 
214 
2A bs) 
230 
230 
231 


LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS _ 
Mauno Parkour) ae “Asian | 
VICTORY STATUETTE (Nine verses iS 


TortorsE Boy FounTAIN ‘ ; : ‘ 
JANET SCUDDER IN LAFAYETTE BALL COSTUME 


MODELING MY LIFE 


be 


I 
TERRE HAUTE 


“Wat do you think it was that made you decide to 
devote your life to art?’ a friend once asked me. 

This friend knew something about me, that I was born 
in Terre Haute, Indiana, in the ’70’s, in surroundings 
utterly devoid of any artistic traditions and made dis- 
mal by poverty—all tremendous burdens for a young 
woman determined to hitch her wagon to a star. 

The question sent my thoughts wandering back 
through the past for an answer until they stopped before 
the tiny figure of myself when I was about six years 
old. I had been out in the garden playing with the 
flowers. The colors evidently stirred something latent 
in me for I can remember, as distinctly as though it 
had happened yesterday, the feeling of intense excite- 
ment that swept over me and carried me into the house 
and up to my grandmother. I can see her now, sitting 
by the window placidly knitting and receiving my 
-onrush with a gentle smile. 

“How did they ever get these beautiful colors?” I 
demanded breathlessly, holding a small bunch of flowers 
out towards her. 

She put out her hand and touched me and then the 
flowers—for she had been blind for many years—and 


[3] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


very solemnly and impressively explained that colors 
were given flowers by God. 

“He painted them!” I gasped. 

She nodded, still very solemn. 

“How?” 

At this she laid down her knitting and her voice came 
a bit uneasily. ‘Why do you ask that, my child?’ 

“Because I want to paint some just like them. [ve 
got to! I must!” 

I am sure the creative instinct was born at that mo- 
ment. I knew that I had to make something beautiful. 
I just had to express in some tangible way the strong 
emotion I was experiencing over the beauty of those 
flowers. Though of course I didn’t know how to for- 
mulate my thoughts or put into practice at the time the 
impulse that was in me, I realize now that from that 
day I have been working steadily and enthusiastically— 
never admitting discouragement and never acknowledg- 
ing that it was a struggle—to give back in some form 
the joy the color of those flowers gave me. 

Poets and writers have grown into the habit of call- 
ing this desire to create something beautiful the divine 
fire. Divine Fire! Perhaps it is that. Surely it is 
divine in the joy it gives. I have always thought that 
incident with the flowers—even though I was only six 
—must have been a tiny little flame from the great 
fire. But it was disturbing to me—and to my grand- 
mother, too, for it carried me to her with many other 
pointed questions about the artistic accomplishments of 


[4] 


TERRE HAUTE 


God. In fact, it seems to me that the first symptoms 
of my future endeavors came into existence and cen- 
tered about my grandmother. I suppose her influence, 
quieting while she was knitting things that I had to 
set up and usually finish for her, emotionally stimulat- 
ing when she was singing hymns—these were her sole 
and only amusements—had something to do with bring- 
ing to life emotions that were dormant when I was 
surrounded by other members of the family. At any 
rate it was she who gave me those two large volumes 
of Longfellow which became so precious to me, not on 
account of the poetry in them but because of the illus- 
trations. They had hardly been put into my hands—on 
the occasion of my eighth birthday—when I carried 
them off to the front parlor—a place where I was sure 
to be undisturbed as it was only used when there was 
a funeral—and there I spread them open on the marble- 
topped table, drew up a heavy black horse-hair chair and 
spent the rest of the day copying the illustrations on 
bits of discarded letters and envelopes. One of these 
pictures I must have copied a hundred times; it was very 
difficult to get right, and just for that reason was all 
the more interesting—some sort of a viking in full armor 
standing by an open door through which was seen the 
sea on which sailed a ship. It was very probably an 
illustration for “The Skeleton in Armor,” though I am 
not sure. The poetry made no impression on me; it 
was the picture that held all my attention. I believe I 
could shut my eyes and draw it now. When our house 


[5] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


caught on fire and the whole of Terre Haute’s volunteer 
fire service came to the rescue, I was found rushing down 
the steps, which were already in flames, with those two 
ponderous volumes clasped in my arms. I had heard 
voices shouting out above the confusion to save the most 
valuable things, and there was no doubt in my mind that 
those books were the most valuable things in the house. 

Another spark in my youthful tinder box flashed into 
flame when I heard my father playing the flute. It was a 
depressing, mournful sound, always emanating from that 
darkened front parlor where he habitually betook himself 
to indulge in this diversion, but it gave me another push 
in the direction of artistic effort. I was at once fired 
with an uncontrollable desire to make music. The piano 
appeared to be the most suitable instrument for me to 
begin with; in those days it was a traditional part of 
every young girl’s education, irrespective of whether she 
showed any musical disposition or not. The teacher 
came, I was given a few lessons and began to practise 
finger exercises with an energy that was nothing short 
of violent. After a week I knew I was bored; learning 
to play the piano was evidently a question of years and 
years, whereas I could copy those illustrations from 
Longfellow in an hour or two; but there was a little 
playmate next door who had begun studying music a few 
months before I had, and had made considerable progress. 
She was already playing a tune—“Coming Through the 
Lavender,” it was called. I couldn’t bear to hear her 
playing that tune—without mistakes too—while I was 


[6] 


JANET SCUDDER AT THE AGE OF THREE 


JANET SCUDDER IN HER GARDEN 


IN PARIS 


TERRE HAUTE 


being held down to those tiresome finger exercises; it 
irritated me beyond control; and in an attempt to com- 
pete with her and drown the sound of her playing, I 
began practising my exercises in such a way that you 
couldn’t have heard a brass band pass down the street. 
The ‘‘Anvil Chorus’ would have sounded like a distant, 
religious chant beside the noise I was making. My 
brother Charlie suggested sympathetically that I leave 
a few bits of ivory on the keys; and several neighbors 
called to request that my practising be confined to hours 
when they were away from home—if not out of town. 

This went on for about two weeks, in which my 
energy, if not my efficiency, developed with alarming ra- 
pidity. ‘Then my teacher was forced to choose between 
teaching me or the children next door. By this time the 
noise I was making had become unendurable to the 
whole neighborhood; and as there were two pupils in 
the neighbor’s house, whereas I was the only aspirant 
in my family, and as their parents had threatened to 
discontinue lessons if I were allowed to go on disturbing 
the peace, there was only one thing left for the poor 
teacher to do—relinquish me. She did it in a way that 
proved her to be a real diplomat. Instead of coming 
right out with the whole truth, she beat about the bush 
for a few days and then went to my father and told 
him that she had seen some of my sketches—always those 
same copies from the Longfellow books—and that she 
had come to the conclusion that I should give all my 
time to drawing and not waste my energies at the piano. 


a 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Her diplomacy—for it was probably that and not 
appreciation of my drawings—had an extraordinary in- 
fluence on my later career. Instead of continuing at the 
piano I was sent to the Saturday afternoon drawing class 
at the Rose Polytechnic Institute. And this resulted, 
in a very short time, in my bringing home with exulta- 
tion a large crayon drawing of a plaster cast of tulips. 
Genius was now in full flood. Any one—and especially 
a child—who could do a real crayon drawing was con- 
sidered in those days worthy of the respect of the whole 
community. 

‘Your daughter has got something in her,”’ dear old 
Professor Ames, the director of the Institute, said to my 
father. “She should be given every advantage. When 
she graduates from the high school you will have to 
send her to the Academy of Art at Cincinnati.” 

Cincinnati! Academy of Art! My head began to 
whirl; and it might have gone on whirling if Caroline 
Peddle—a friend I had made in the drawing class, and 
one who was particularly impressed with the assured 
way in which I had made that crayon drawing of the 
plaster cast of tulips—had not come in that afternoon 
and, after getting me off to herself in the woodshed and 
swearing me to secrecy, told me of a dazzling idea that 
had just that day popped into her head. | 

The county fair was going to be held in Terre Haute 
the next month, and besides the usual showing of pigs 
and poultry and live-stock, an exhibition of art was to 
be included—only home talent being allowed to enter 


[8] 


TERRE HAUTE 


the competition—for which amazing—to me—sums of 
money were to be offered as prizes. Caroline had got 
hold of a catalogue and brought it along with her. With 
trembling fingers she turned the pages and read the list 
of prizes aloud to me with a far from steady voice. 


Crayon portrait of a mother and child............ $15.00 
Water color, framed, of flowers............0.006. $10.00 
Oil painting on canvas of a horse in hand-carved 

ee. os eres ec tleueesvcaaediecs $20.00 
ME ON Be a Fo swe Givi ole e's ces ethan $5.00 
Study of pansies on bolting cloth................ $2.50 
Velvet banner with design in oils..............0-- $3.00 
MURIEL Ak ATAY we ee ce ts we ved cece ans $2.50 
Ice cream set of hand-painted china.............. $12.00 


I listened to Caroline’s reading of this list, rather 
bored and wondering why she appeared so excited. 

“Now!” she exclaimed, “what do you think of that?” 

“What have we got to do with it?’ 

. “Silly—don’t you see? You know how to draw in 
crayon; I know how to paint in water colors. Why 
can’t we win some of those prizes!” _ 

The idea hit me straight between the eyes—and with 
so much force that J grabbed the book and began run- 
ning over the list myself. It was nothing short of in- 
spiration on Caroline’s part. 

“Don’t you think we might win some of them?” she 
asked, still breathless. 

“Some of them?” I replied, now all ablaze with enthu- 
siasm and energy. ‘We are going to win them all!” 


[9] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


This confidence was a little too much for her. “But 
how could we! We don’t know how to paint on 
china—or in oils—or how to hammer brass—or carve 
wood.” 

“We've got to learn.” 

“But there’s only two months before the fair.” 

“That’s all right. We'll take a couple of lessons in 
the things we don’t know how to do. You learn the 
china painting. Il study how to hammer brass and 
carve wood.” My recollection of the power I had 
shown at the piano inspired me with confidence in my 
capacity to cope with these last two energetic forms of 
art. “I suppose there’s no use trying for that oil paint- 
ing of a horse on canvas in a hand-carved frame. I 
wish we could, though. That carries a twenty-dollar 
prize. Do you suppose we could learn oil painting in 
a month?” 

Caroline didn’t think so and wouldn’t hear of my 
trying; she felt that if we did all the other things and 
carried off prizes for each of them we ought to be satis- 
fied. I didn’t agsee with her; nothing short of the whole 
list would really satisfy me; but for the moment I gave 
in to my playmate. Yet all the time, that oil painting 
of a horse on canvas in a hand-carved frame that was 
to receive a prize of twenty dollars remained steadily 
before me. ‘Twenty dollars! I had never seen that 
much money. It was the sort of sum—just thinking 
of it—that kept me awake at night. 

We went to work with an enthusiasm that was made 


[10] 


TERRE HAUTE 


efficient by the thought of those prizes; though the fear 
of not winning them and being laughed at made us very 
cautious and secretive. My success with the crayon 
portrait of mother and child—which wasn’t a portrait 
at all, only a copy of a picture I found in an old 
almanac—encouraged me to hurry on to the hammered 
brass tray, which finally evolved into what was sup- 
posed to be the head of Medusa—a much mutilated one, 
and in no way suggestive of the one with which Ben- 
venuto Cellini won his fame. I made such progress 
that, well before the fair opened, my share of the list 
was completed. I even attempted the study of pansies 
on bolting cloth, this copied from a colored print for 
which I had to pay ten cents to the local stationer. 
Caroline went in for what might be called the more 
refined branches of art, fuchsias on velvet, luxuriant 
sprays of wild roses in water colors and the china ice 
cream set, which she covered all over with what she 
insisted were forget-me-nots. 

We carried the finished products ourselves to the fair 
grounds, left them in the division assigned to the art 
exhibit, said nothing about who had sent them, and 

hurried away without giving our names. The next 
- week, when the fair opened, we arrived trembling with 
fear lest the judges had not found our work worthy to 
be exhibited. Grasping each other by the hand we 
timidly approached the building and peered in. Sud- 
denly I gave a start, smothered an exclamation and 
hurried in. There, a long way off—but at that moment 


[11] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


I had eyes that would have rivaled the famous lynx— 
surrounded by an extensive collection of glass jars filled 
with home-made peach preserves and plum jelly, and 
really occupying the place of honor, was my hammered 
brass tray of the head of Medusa. 

I have never since experienced a thrill like that; I 
never shall; I couldn’t. Things like that only come 
once in a lifetime. Even when I saw my Frog Fountain 
placed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New 
York and my Boy with Fish in the Luxembourg Mu- 
seum of Paris, I did not have nearly the same sensation 
of achievement as when, at the county fair of Terre 
Haute, I stood before that hammered brass tray of the 
head of Medusa surrounded by home-made peach pre- 
serves and plum jelly. 

Caroline and I went every day to gloat over our 
exhibit. Everything we sent had been accepted. And 
when Saturday came and we found a blue ribbon at- 
tached to each article—which meant that we had car- 
ried off every single prize—I think we both must have 
come very near to fainting. We had no peace until we 
found a catalogue and added up the total amount, which 
came to fifty dollars. No wonder we ran to the lunch 
counter and ordered the two largest glasses of pink 
lemonade to be had. The fact that no one else had gone 
to the trouble to exhibit any of these prize-winning 
articles—which of course left the field free of rivalry— 
did not once enter our thoughts. Besides, we were not 
looking for honors in those days; we only wanted some- 


[12] 


TERRE HAUTE 


thing neither of us had ever had—a few dollars with 
which to buy art materials. 

This overwhelming success, however, had failed to 
obliterate the impression that oil painting on canvas of 
a horse in hand-carved frame had made on me. When 
Caroline suggested—now that I think of her she must 
have typified all the pent-up energy of the Middle West 
of those days—that, as we had carried off all the prizes 
at the Terre Haute county fair, there was no reason 
why we shouldn’t do the same at other fairs, we im- 
mediately went to work to carry out the idea. It might 
be said that we deliberately went into the prize-win- 
ning business. We exhibited—always the same things, 
among which my hammered head of Medusa acquired 
considerable more hammering on its journeys—at every 
county fair we heard of. The result was not as profit- 
able as we had hoped. We did not always win prizes; 
we never again won the complete series as we had at 
the beginning; but we made enough at least to pay the 
express charges to and fro and a few dollars besides. 
It was in one of these contests that I saw the chance of 
realizing my ambition of doing the oil painting on 
canvas of a horse. I had very quietly watched one of 
the pupils at the Institute painting in oils; it seemed to 
me to be no trick at all; and it probably wasn’t, the way 
she did it. When I felt that I had mastered this, to me, 
very simple form of art, I looked about for a picture 
of a horse to copy. In those days no one ever thought 
of painting or drawing from nature; one just copied 


[13] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


those hideous colored prints that were got up for stu- 
dents and art classes, thus developing no originality 
and teaching one to carry on, even perpetuate, the banal 
work of some very second-rate craftsman. In fact, one 
sees even to-day those same incredible prints being dis- 
played in the windows of shops that sell artists’ mate- 
rials. A law ought to be passed against the sale of them. 

It took me some time to find a picture of a horse— 
at least one in colors; much more time than it did to 
copy it in oils—and of course on canvas—after it was 
found. The hand-carved frame also took considerably 
more time. But at last it was finished—and to my 
entire satisfaction. It was a wholly impressive piece of 
work; far ahead of anything Caroline had done, I 
thought, and somehow much more worthy of admiration 
than the head of Medusa. Without letting Caroline 
know that I had done it, or even mentioning it to her, 
I slipped it into the box we were just getting ready 
for the Illinois State Fair. You see we were now 
attacking what we thought were foreign fields. When 
the box was returned to us after the fair, and we were 
opening it anxiously to see if there were any attached 
blue ribbons, Caroline came across this secret effort of 
mine, looked at it contemptuously and then cast it aside. 

“T like their nerve—sending us back a horrible thing 
like that! How do you suppose they ever got it mixed 
up with our things!” 

It was a terrible blow to me; but without an instant’s 
hesitation, and in equally contemptuous tones I dis- 


[14] 


TERRE HAUTE 


owned my masterpiece; and what is more, I never told 
her that [ had done it. 

But these are only gay fragments of those long, dreary 
years of childhood and youth, which in greater part were 
made up of a procession of dismal events in which a 
stepmother, funerals and poverty were the main fac- 
tors. Two characters rise out of a tangle of memories— 
distinct and lasting in their influence—my father and 
Hannah Hussey. 

My father was a very quiet man, who said little and 
had little to do with our home life; which I suppose 
was quite natural when it ts taken into consideration 
that he had had seven children, a second wife, and was 
constantly struggling—unsuccessfully too—to keep the 
wolf from the door. It is expecting too much of mere 
flesh and blood to carry gaily a burden like that; and 
he didn’t. He moved about quietly, silently and had 
practically nothing to do with our lives. And yet I 
knew he was my friend; I felt even in those thoughtless 
days of childhood that he was the one on whom I could 
count. Now and then he would do things that were 
so much more vital than words. When I brought back 
from the drawing class that crayon horror of a plaster 
cast of tulips, he didn’t say a word; he just looked at 
it a long time. I had the despairing feeling that he 
was finding it so bad that he was going to forbid my 
studying drawing any longer. Instead, still ominously 
silent, he went out to the woodshed, found a hammer 
and a nail, returned to the hall, drove the nail in the 


[15] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


wall just over the sofa where he took his daily nap 
and hung my drawing there. I often found him lying 
there after dinner looking at my drawing with some- 
thing in his eyes that touched me very deeply; though 
when he saw me watching him, he pretended to be 
asleep. Perhaps I realized he had confidence in me 
—or hopes for me—or something, I didn’t know 
exactly what. At any rate it drew me to him and ever 
since then I have carried along with me the knowledge 
that if we really want to do something for anybody, 
something kind and encouraging and helpful, we can 
do it much better with actions than with words. Almost 
every one is willing to say something pleasant about the 
efforts of others—that’s easy enough; doing things takes 
a little more energy. 

I wish more attention had been given to psychology 
when I was a child; it would have made human rela- 
tions simpler; and it might have given me an inkling 
of what my father meant when he asked me, one 
day, which I liked better—my teacher at school or the 
one who taught my Sunday School class. If I had only 
known what he meant, a tragedy might have been 
averted. But I hadn’t the slightest idea when I an- 
swered, without considering the matter seriously, that I 
thought I preferred my school teacher, that my father 
was contemplating a very serious step just to give me, 
a young girl who had lost her mother when she was 
five, the right sort of home with some gentle influence 
in it to care for and guide her. When he brought the 


[16] 


TERRE HAUTE 


school teacher home as his wife, I began to understand 
vaguely what he had meant. But it was too late. And 
oh, what a difference between a woman as one’s school 
teacher and as one’s stepmother! 

It was my father who realized, though he never ad- 
mitted it, that I hated the idea of having to become a 
school teacher myself, following the footsteps of my 
eldest sister Martha, who had undertaken that profes- 
sion. I’m sure he chuckled to himself when I deliber- 
ately failed in the high school examinations, writing all 
the foolish answers I could think of to the questions so 
that I could not possibly be given a teacher’s certificate; 
and when it came to the real ordeal of my life—nothing 
has ever come up to that day in actual terror—when I 
was told that I had to read an essay at the commence- 
ment exercises before the entire concentrated mass of 
Terre Haute parents, I was very much inclined to con- 
fess to him the somewhat violent means I was taking 
to escape that torture. 

Just the mere writing of an essay hadn’t given me 
any trouble at all; it seemed to me no more difficult or 
complicated than it had seemed years before to paint a 
picture of a horse in oils on canvas. I chose a name 
which I felt sounded important enough to carry off 
anything I might say after the title had been read— 
“Utopia.” But the idea of standing on a platform 
before those hundreds of pairs of parental eyes was 
something I just couldn’t and wouldn’t think of. 

In despair, and with the fatal day only twenty-four 


[17] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


hours off, I confided my problem to the son of the near-by 
druggist. He occasionally treated me to lemon sherbet, 
served at his father’s fountain, the favorite concoction 
of those days, made of crushed ice and some synthetic 
syrup. My friend listened sympathetically to my story 
and said he could fix me up in no time. 

His assurance made me suspicious. ‘“‘What do you 
mean?” [ asked. 

“The only thing for you to do is to get sick.” 

“How can I?” I asked, immediately discouraged. As 
a matter of fact, I don’t remember ever having had any 
of those diseases that other children were always having, 
not even hives; and the idea of being sick appeared as 
impossible as reading the essay. 

But this evidently did not disturb him. “You just 
leave it to me,”’ he said mysteriously, and retired behind 
the counter, returning soon with a small package which 
he handed to me. 

“What is it?’ I asked, half in fear, half in hope. 

He smiled confidently. “Just take it and see.” 

“But you must tell me what it is.” 

“Tt’s nothing—just Garfield Tea.” 

“Will it put me to sleep?’ I already had visions of 
going into a profound slumber, as Juliette had done, 
and sleeping straight through the commencement exer- 
cises. 

“It won’t put you to sleep, but I’ll guarantee it will 
put you into a condition that will make it impossible for 
you to go on the platform and read that essay.” 


[18] 


TERRE HAUTE 


I waited until evening, brewed the tea and drank a 
huge quantity of it; and then I had an opportunity of 
deciding which was the greater of the two sufferings— 
mental or physical. 

My stepmother must have had a suspicion of what 
was going on, for the next afternoon she gave me a most 
efficient antidote to the Garfield Tea; and that night I 
was led on to the platform, feeling and looking exactly 
like some old saint who had just been taken from the 
rack, and forced to read my essay on “Utopia.” 

And Hannah Hussey—dear Hannah! It was she who 
took the place of my real mother. She had been with 
the family since long before I was born, having arrived 
straight from Ireland when she was only eight and come 
directly to us; and as the years had broadened her figure 
and whitened her hair and the family fortunes had 
dwindled to almost nothing, she stopped on with us, 
never complaining, even of my father’s fatal second 
marriage, and never saying a word when her meager 
monthly stipend was not forthcoming. She just gradu- 
ally developed from rurse to cook and housemaid until 
there was nothing she did not do. She had a deep, com- 
fortable bosom and a gentle voice. And she not only 
loved me, but told me so: which my father never 
did. When I came back on a vacation from my first 
year in Cincinnati at the Academy of Art, it was Han- 
nah who had a present for me—a crisp five-dollar bill 
which she had spent the whole year in saving to give 
to me. Dear Hannah Hussey—I send you my greet- 


[19] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


ings from across the seas, and all my love. You are 
one of the few pleasant memories of a very sad child- 
hood. 

The rest of the family—my brothers and sisters—had 
varying influences on me. One sister, several years 
older than I, who went to parties in what I thought were 
ravishing organdy dresses, caused me as much wonder as 
the flowers God had painted; but she died very young 
and left me with the feeling that the most beautiful 
person I was ever to know had gone out of my life. 
Another sister was off supporting herself by teaching 
school. One brother was a traveling salesman and only 
showed himself under the parental roof every few 
months. And another brother, a year older than I, 
played the part of Fate at a moment when I might 
have swerved from my original idea of being an artist. 
It was at about the age of twelve when, thrown with 
the conglomerate mass of public school children, I found 
myself much more sympathetic with boys than girls. I 
liked the things boys did; and I soon saw that I could 
do those things just as well as they did. I could skin 
the cat, hang by my toes, turn handsprings in a way 
that Elsie Janis never did, and as for skating on ice in 
the moonlight—no one could outdistance me. When 
the boys got up their Easter circus, held in the vacant 
lot that is now covered by Terre Haute’s proudest sky- 
scraper, I played the leading part in every turn—even 
to directing the making of tubs of lemonade which 
would pay the expenses we had undergone. For the 


[20] 


TERRE HAUTE 


time being the copying of the illustrations from the 
Longfellow books and the wood carving and the ham- 
mered brass completely lost their fascination. I was 
now wholly obsessed with a compelling need of being 
continually in motion and risking my neck every hour 
of the day. Thank Heaven I had that period! It 
strengthened me and prepared me for the long struggle 
that was to come; it gave me a constitution that has 
been able to meet and endure endless days of discour- 
agement and hunger. Oh, yes—I know what it is to 
be hungry! At one time in New York my daily diet 
consisted for weeks of a bottle of milk and a tin of 
baked beans. I can never see a tin of baked beans now 
without having an alarming sinking sensation. If I 
hadn’t had that athletic training I should never have 
been able to get through some experiences, Artists, and ) 
especially sculptors, need as much physical strength as | 


any other workers. Good work and inspiration are ~ 


rarely arrived at unless the body is functioning healthily. . 
My brother Charlie thought my athletic tendencies 
were infra dig for a girl. He told me so one day. 
“You are making a regular tomboy of yourself. The 
other boys don’t like you that way. They say you want 
to run all their games—and they don’t want you to. If 
you'll take my advice, you'll cut out all this silly gym- 
nastic stuff at once.” 
And what seems strange to me now—lI did. I re- 
nounced the circus, top-spinning, marble rolling, every- 
thing except ice skating—which was considered permis- 


[21] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


sible for girls. But the influences of that formative 
period still cling to me; some of my habits and diver- 
sions are hardly what would be called strictly feminine 
—even in this advanced age. I much prefer severely 
tailored clothes to fussy dresses; I should like to drive 
every motorcar I get into; I will not be bothered with 
housekeeping; and as for snoking—well, some one once 
told me that the first note in an international reputa- 
tion was struck on the day I smoked a cigarette in the 
sacred precincts of the Saddle and Cycle Club—the first 
_ woman to smoke in public in Chicago, it was said after- 
\wards. I should have been frightfully embarrassed if I 
had known it at the time. My host offered me a ciga- 
rette as a joke after lunch. I just naturally accepted 
one and smoked it. 

I was visiting at that time some people who I 
thought were extremely broad-minded—in fact they 
were so, for those twenty years ago. They allowed me 
to smoke cigarettes but were very shy about having it 
known. I had usually to lock myself in my own 
room. Once, however, downing their prejudices—not 
really against smoking but on account of their dread 
of what other people would say of me—TI was given a 
cigarette just after luncheon in the dining-room when, 
quite unexpectedly, the Presbyterian minister was an- 
nounced. As he was an intimate friend he was shown 
directly into the dining-room; but before he had crossed 
the threshold my host had jerked the cigarette from my 
lips and transferred it to his own—forgetting that he 


[22] 


JANET SCUDDER AT WORK AT THE WORLD’S FAIR, 
CHICAGO 


Sip ia i RS 


AHE “WHITE RABBITS” IN THE HORTICULTURAL 
BUILDING AT THE WORLD’S FAIR 


SIuVd ‘OIGNLS SIH NI SAINNOWOVW MOINAGaA 


TERRE HAUTE 


had one already in his other hand. The minister must 
have been surprised to see a man smoking two cigarettes 
at one time. Thus was the situation saved, and my good 
name preserved. If I had worn my hair short then, as 
I do now, I’m sure my reputation would have been 
irreparably shattered. Other days—other customs! 

Not only did I start life in the midst of a very dismal 
poverty, but I began it also with a name that would 
have damned the most promising of infant prodigies. 
And right here I would like to say that a name has a 
great deal more to do with an artist’s success than the 
world realizes; in fact I am almost inclined to go to an 
extreme and say it is half of success. A good name, a 
romantic name, a distinguished name, a strange name, 
a resonant name, even a queer name, is quite invaluable. 
Don’t you think Rudyard Kipling, Anatole France, 
Eleonora Duse, Sarah Bernhardt, were helped along 
considerably by their names? Would they have had as 
great a success if they had been named James Brown or 
Thomas Smith or Mary Jones? Of course I'll admit 
there are exceptions, but they are the sort that prove the 
tule. My advice to all struggling artists—and who of 
us is not struggling ?—is to give much time and thought 
to the choice of a name; and when it is once found, dis- 
card the one given you by thoughtless and inconsiderate 
parents—no matter how sentimental you may feel about 
it—and adopt that new name, become it and do your 
best to live up to all it suggests. 

But this poor little me—handicapped the very first 


[23] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


day of my entrance into this world of struggle and tur- 
moil with four—yes, four!—of the most awful names 
that were ever got together, each mounting in crescendo 
fashion to a finale that should have left me crushed at 
the very start. Netta Deweze Frazee Scudder! Per- 
haps you won't believe it, but it’s true. That is the 
name—or the series—given me by one of my mother’s 
very dear friends, 

It seems that my mother wanted to name me for this 
friend, whose first name was Netta, but the friend in- 
sisted that if I were given her name at all, it should be 
given in full, even including the surname of her hus- 
band. After my mother had been bullied—I’m sure she 
must have been—into accepting this decision, the friend 
attempted to soften her crime by presenting me with a 
silver knife, fork and spoon engraved with my name in 
full. The length of the series evidently tested the local 
silversmith’s cleverness, and he overcame the difficulty 
only by engraving Netta Deweze on one side of the 
handle and adding Frazee Scudder on the other. 

The family naturally did not attempt to call me by 
this overpowering collection of names; they very soon 
compromised with Nettie and usually Net—and dear 
Hannah had her own version of Little Nettie. I car- 
ried the whole group with me until I was eighteen; in 
fact until I entered the Cincinnati Academy of Art; and 
there an incident occurred which caused the heavy bure 
den to fall from my shoulders and abolished the stigma 
forever. But that belongs to the wonderful period when 


[24] 


TERRE HAUTE 


I discovered the world held the thrilling adventure of 
modeling in clay. 

Besides being queered at the getaway—as the racing 
experts would put it—with a name like that, I was bur- 
dened with the background of a long line of religious 
ancestors. Though this, I have sometimes thought since, 
may have been fortunate; for it is my belief that it is 
impossible for a series of generations to go along work- 
ing and thinking and using up emotions on one subject. 
Those special brain cells necessary to that subject be- 
come exhausted and leave the new brain just created 
without any power to continue work in the same direc- 
tion. Therefore, the new brain must strike out in an 
entirely new direction, using cells that have long lain 
dormant, and with a very good chance of developing 
some new talent or at least fresh energies. This all 
sounds philosophical—which I have no ambition to be 
—but I’m trying to explain tendencies in me which the 
rest of the family thought were somewhat bewildering. 
It all boils down to this—to give a few simple examples 
to prove my theory. Did you ever know a clergyman 
whose son was a good clergyman—or a painter whose 
son had any real talent—or a singer whose daughter 
could sing as well as her mother—or a novelist who 
gave to the world another novelist? That’s the point 
I’m trying to make. It is easy to understand that, for 
me, it was only natural, with that long line of Scudder 
missionaries (medical missionaries, I hasten to say) of 
the Presbyterian Church using up brain cells in the 


[25] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


proselytizing of savages, to find a whole group of my 
cells—the religious ones—filled with dry batteries. So, 
nature coming to the rescue, counseled me to go ahead 
and use the cells the missionaries had never called into 
action. 

I confess that I never knew anything about my reli- 
gious forefathers until I was asked to become a mem- 
ber of the National Society Colonial Daughters of 
. American Founders and Patriots. Up to this time I 
had taken it for granted that I was Scotch-Irish—as 
many Americans are inclined to think themselves. But 
when I wrote to an uncle in Kentucky to give me the 
necessary information about the family, he replied in a 
most extensive and detailed fashion. 

This letter informs me that two brothers, John and 
Thomas Scudder, came over in 1635; one of these, 
Thomas, was a man of such great piety that he became 
known as “Goodman” Scudder; and one of his descend- 
ants, when graduating from Princeton, was pronounced 
by the faculty to be “very devout.” It was this one 
who eventually responded to the advertisement of the 
American Board of Missions for “a pious physician for 
India who could combine the qualities of missionary and 
physician.”” He was accepted; a farewell sermon was 
preached in the Old South Church, Boston, and on June 
18, 1819, he sailed away with his wife for Calcutta, 
having the distinction of being the first missionary to be 
sent out from America. There were other members of 
the family who went into the missionary field—it was 


[26] 


TERRE HAUTE 


apparently a sort of passion with them—though my 
immediate ancestors remained at home and spent their 
time migrating more and more towards the Middle 
West. My grandfather moved from Princeton, New 
Jersey, to Kentucky; and my father, after he was mars 
ried, settled in Terre Haute, where I was born. On the 
whole it is a fairly satisfactory—and wholly Anglo- 
Saxon—record to present when one is going through the 
agony of obtaining a passport; though I do catch myself 
wondering, every now and then, if a love of adventure 
didn’t have something to do with carrying so many 
Scudders into foreign parts—that same love of adven- 
ture that carried me from Terre Haute to Chicago, from 
Chicago to Paris, and from Paris to Rome. 

I must confess, though, I am rather glad I didn’t know 
all about that background of pious strains until it was 
too late to do anything about it; there might have been 
rather troublesome moments when just the mere con- 
sciousness of religious ancestors would have made me 
feel tremendously guilty. I’m sure, if I had known it 
when I was studying in MacMonnies’ Paris studio, the 
only woman among a number of men who were working 
from nude models, I should have seen the ghosts of the 
whole congregation of missionaries rising up in their 
wrath to denounce me. | 

Recreating the incidents of that early period of my 
life brings to mind an event that took place after many 
years of wandering. I found myself possessed by an 
irresistible longing to return to my native state. In 


[27] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


spite of my sad and dismal childhood in Terre Haute, 
I had a very deep affection for my native town. Per- 
haps that unhappy period was just what I had needed 
to spur me on to accomplishment. Possibly if I had 
had a happy, normal life, with love and tenderness 
surrounding me, I should have been content to go on 
dreaming of what I might do if I could ever find the 
time. / Ambition has always seemed to me to be the 
‘yesult of difficulties; a very pleasant life seldom arouses 
Nit in any one. At any rate, when some success had come, 
I had a great desire to go back to Indiana and see how 
it looked after so many years had rolled by. I had met 
a woman in New York who, when she heard of my pro- 
posed visit to my native state, invited me to stop off in 
Indianapolis to stay with her. I accepted, expecting to 
pass a few quiet days with her before going on to Terre 
Haute; but hardly had I stepped off the train when I 
found my visit was going to be anything but quiet. My 
friend, with the kindest intentions in the world, had de- 
cided that I should be boosted as one of the state’s most 
distinguished products; dinners, luncheons and teas had 
been arranged; and a sort of public reception was to be 
given in my honor. This was wholly unexpected and 
wholly terrifying. I was born shy and have consistently 
remained so, in spite of tremendous efforts to overcome 
it and the conviction that it is very bad policy to be 
timid. The thought of being made a sort of seventh 
wonder to be stared at and talked to and about was 
more than I could bear. If there had been any way 


[28] 


TERRE HAUTE 


of getting out of Indianapolis gracefully—or ungrace- 
fully for that matter—I would have done it at once. 
But there wasn’t; I had to grin and bear it and see it 
through. And the agony of shyness of those two days 
reached a climax when, standing by my hostess and 
shaking hands with what appeared to me to be an end- 
less line of people, an old gentleman stepped forward 
and said with a burr in his voice that I had almost for- 
gotten and yet which made my heart warm towards him: 

“Now, Miss Scudder-r-r-r—if you have a few mo- 
ments—will you kindly tell us some incidents of 
your-r-r-r ear-r-rly childhood.” 

‘This visit to Indianapolis upset me so much that I 
hadn’t the moral or physical courage to go on to Terre 
Haute, from which I was already receiving telegrams 
and letters and clippings from papers which announced 
my imminent arrival in headlines that ran straight across 
the front page. I learned that when I arrived in my 
home town there would be a brass band at the station 
to meet me—and I was not up to standing the demon- 
stration. I telegraphed that I had suddenly been called 
back to New York on very important business and that, 
unfortunately, my visit home would have to be post- 
poned. I felt that I was not important enough to pose 
on the pedestal prepared for me. Always I have hopes 
of going back some day and being really worthy of so 
much attention. There is nothing else to tell of those 
first eighteen years of my life, unless it is the night I 
left Terre Haute to go to Cincinnati to enter the Acad- 


[29] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


emy of Art. How this was ever arranged, I never knew. 
My father just came home one day—it was during the 
latter part of the summer—told me to pack my trunk 
and get ready to leave. I knew what the expenses would 
be, for I had looked into them and thought them quite 
impossible. The tuition at the Academy was only 
twenty dollars for the whole season, but beyond this 
was the expense of a boarding house and incidentals— 
a letter from a friend living in Cincinnati had put these 
latter expenses, at the very lowest, as being four dollars 
a week for board and one dollar for incidentals. — 

As soon as I knew it was an actual fact that I was to 
leave, I no longer lived in Terre Haute; my thoughts 
ran ahead—sometimes I felt that my body had, too— 
into that splendid future that was already mine. Noth- 
ing was real any longer except the study, the work, the 
success that was so surely beckoning me on. There was 
never the least hesitation or doubt or regret. I knew 
perfectly well that I was following my fate line. 

My father walked with me to the station, as quiet and 
speechless as he had always been. It was a calm, Sep- 
tember morning; and as the station was only a few 
blocks away we did not have one of those large hacks in 
which I had so often watched other people—and envied 
them—going and coming from the trains. I remember 
feeling just the least twinge of regret that my father 
had not thought my departure sufficiently important to 
engage a hack for the occasion. 

When he had found a place for me in the day caccee 


[30] 


TERRE HAUTE 
he leaned over and kissed me, saying, ““Good-by, Nettie. 
God bless you!” and left me before the train had 


pulled out. 
A few minutes later I was on my way—alone—to 


find the world and myself. 


[31] 


I] 
CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


THE excitement of arriving in Cincinnati had nothing 
to do with the fact that it was my first visit to a large 
city; it was all due to that Academy of Art. All the 
details of being met by an uncle I had never seen and 
taken to a boarding house on Walnut Hills, where 
arrangements had been made for me to stay, made no 
impression. My eyes and my heart were straining in 
the direction of that seat of learning where something 
within me—I wasn’t yet quite sure what—was going to 
burst into full bloom. 

The first glimpse of the building sent a chill through 
me; I suppose it would even now if I should see it again; 
it was of gray stone, ominous, cold—exactly the sort of 
building you see from train windows and are told is the 
state penitentiary or lunatic asylum. And the director, 
to whom I applied the next morning, was no more 
assuring in appearance than the building; I still think 
of him as the biggest, hairiest, severest person I have 
ever met. I was shown into his office and left standing 
to meet his searching eyes alone. 

“Well, young lady, what is it you want to do?” 

I avoided his eyes, changed from one foot to the other 
and clasped my hands. 


[32] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


“I—I want to study art.” 

He probably smiled; I only remember that I didn’t. 

“What branch?’ 

This was almost too much to bear. I stammered 
again: “J—I don’t know.” 

“We teach all branches of art in this academy.” 

“‘Then—I—suppose I’d better study them all.” 

“Wouldn’t that be something of an undertaking for 
so young a girl as you?” 

I lifted my head a little less shyly. ‘I’m eighteen.” 

“Yes—but still—’ I think he was finding me as 
difficult a subject as I was finding him. “Suppose you 
begin with drawing, see how you get along at that and 
then later, perhaps, go on to something else.” 

I nodded, glad of anything that would get me away 
from his disturbing presence; but a few minutes later, 
when I was facing the thin, frowning countenance of 
the drawing school teacher, I began to think the director 
had. a rather sympathetic face. She received me even 
more abruptly and when I timidly announced I wanted 
to enter the drawing class drew a large book towards 
her, dipped pen in ink and again shot a glance at me. 

“What is your name?” 

“Netta Scudder.” 

Her glance was now nothing less than annihilating. 
“We don’t use foolish family pet names in the Academy. 
I want your real name.” 

I swallowed hard and repeated: ‘‘Netta Scudder.” 

“Netta isn’t a name.” 


[33] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


“Tt’s mine.” 

“No—it’s some sort of an abbreviation or nickname. 
Can’t you remember what you were christened?” 

“Oh—you want it all!” I breathed a little more 
easily. “‘Netta Deweze Frazee Scudder.” 

This either satisfied her or overwhelmed her, it was 
difficult to say which; at any rate she said no more, 
wrote down my full name, gave me a list of things I 
should buy for the drawing class, told me the hours and 
dismissed me as abruptly as she had received me. 

But all that day her comment and surprise and insult 
to my name absorbed my attention to the exclusion of 
new surroundings. What was the matter with it, any- 
way? No one had ever before suggested that it was 
unusual. Now that I began to think about it, I realized 
that I had no fondness for it myself; the more I thought 
of it the more foolish it sounded. No—it wouldn’t do; 
I saw that quite plainly. But what would take its 
place? Should I use Deweze or Frazee instead? They 
were even worse. I went over this problem for several 
days until, running across the name of Antoinette, I 
decided that was what I was looking for. Probably 
Netta was an abbreviation of it anyway. (Yes—An- 
toinette was charming. When later I entered the water 
color class I gave my name as Antoinette and had the 
satisfaction of seeing it written down without either 
comments or insults. But by the time I entered the 
wood-carving class I had reached the conclusion that 
Antoinette was a bit frivolous for me. In search of 


[34] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


something more suitable, I began studying the diction- 
ary—that part of it which gives proper names; that was 
what I wanted—a proper name; and there was some- 
thing about Antoinette that seemed to me not altogether 
proper. I entered the oil-painting class under the name 
of Jeanette; though I knew I hadn’t yet reached the 
perfect form. Several weeks later I discovered the 
Scotch modification of Jeanette—Janet. I tried this 
over, speaking it aloud, writing it on a piece of paper 
and sticking it up on the wall. I looked at it before I 
went to sleep; it was the first thing I saw in the morn- 
ing; and when I finally entered the modeling class I 
gave this new name with considerable satisfaction. It 
had a certain dignity and simplicity about it; it sug- 
gested—at least to me—seriousness and strength; and 
the shifting of the accent from the net to the Jan was 
just what I was looking for. I finally reached the con- 
clusion that Janet Scudder was the name that suggested 
something I wanted to be; and it has remained my name 
ever since. 

All the time my name was going through this process 
of evolution I was working in the drawing class doing 
geometrical solids on large pieces of manila paper. It 
wasn’t exciting work, but I plodded along conscientiously 
and have always been very thankful that I did. A 
sculptor must know how to draw even if modern painters 
think it unnecessary; and just working day after day 
getting the angles and curves and bodies of those solids 
at my finger tips has been of inestimable advantage to 


[35] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


me. There is something fundamental about drawing 
from geometrical solids; you are working from the out- 
side in—not from the inside out. Somehow it rather 
suggests to me the need of a writer to know how to spell 
and punctuate before he can compose a really finished 
sentence. 

From these solids I went on to drawing detached fea- 
tures—feet, hands, ears, noses, eyes—all from plaster 
casts; then came anatomical figures eight feet high. 
Three months were supposed to be spent on each anatom- 
ical drawing; three months on the front view, three 
months on the back view, and three months on the pro- 
file—the drawings being eight feet in length, as the 
figure. Every subcutaneous muscle was shown on the 
plaster figure, and we were supposed to reproduce them 
in the drawing. Connected with this work were other 
studies of anatomy. We had to read books on the sub- 
ject and attend lectures; we even had to be present at 
the dissecting of a corpse, at which time we were shown 
muscles and ligaments and layers of flesh as they ac- 
tually exist. 

I studied anatomy prodigiously and have found 
sculpture immeasurably more alluring in consequence. 
I understand subcutaneous muscles now, know their 
sources and their effect upon each other. I learned all 
their names and could rattle them off without an effort, 
though now I seem to recall only one—gastrocnemius. 
This particular one remained in my memory probably 


[36] | Pa 


ya 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


only because I have had some personal experience with 
this muscle, particularly when playing tennis. 

Towards the end of the course in anatomy—thank 
Heaven it was not at the beginning !—the teacher wished 
the students to examine very closely an eyeball—a real 
one !—that he was lecturing about and had the horrible 
object sent forth through the audience, each student 
passing it by hand to his neighbor. When I saw it get- 
ting nearer and nearer to me and realized that I was 
supposed to hold it in my hand, I rose abruptly and hur- 
tied from the lecture hall. That ended my lessons in 
anatomy. I was never able to go into that lecture hall 
again; and incidentally this has a great deal to do with 
my non-entrance into the life classes in Cincinnati, for 
I never was able to screw up my courage sufficiently to 
endure the complete ordeal of those anatomy demon- 
strations and to pass the examination which allowed the 
student to commence the work with the nude. At that 
time in the Cincinnati Art Academy a most rigid routine 
was obligatory. After all, I’m not sorry that I left off 
anatomy at that point. I don’t believe artists should be 
subjected to experiences that harden the sensibilities; 


without sensibility no fine work can ever be done. ~~ 


While all this was going on I was constantly faced 
with the problem of finding a self-supporting profession ; 
and just learning how the body was made and how to 
draw it didn’t seem, at that time, to promise much in 
the way of making a living—and that necessity was 


[37] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


always in the back of my mind. I wasn’t at all sure 
that my father would be able to keep me at the Academy 
for more than two years. I must make hay while the 
sun was shining. And making hay took the form very 
quickly of wood-carving. It was the form of artistic 
development in the United States that was most popular 
at that moment; every one was buying wood-carved 
articles; every mother felt that her table was incomplete 
if she did not have a carved wood bread trencher on 
which she could slice bread; and a library without hand- 
carved book racks was not a library at all. It was the 
sort of artistic endeavor that was just then quite profit- 
able. 

I plunged head and heels into wood-carving. My 
efficiency progressed by leaps and bounds. I scorned 
small bits of work and attacked a whole mantel-piece, 
carved up one side and down the other and all across 
the front with grapes that stood out in relief as no real 
ones would ever have the courage to do. It was the sort 
of thing that would have taken Leonardo da Vinci’s 
whole class years to do. I am not suggesting that their 
finished work would not have been very different from 
mine; but I was quite happy over it and had the satis- 
faction—and pride too undoubtedly—of selling my 
mantel-piece at once for the huge sum of sixty dollars. 
I would give anything if I could find it now; it is 
undoubtedly ornamenting, in a most flamboyant way, 
some prosperous wheat grower’s mansion in Ohio at this 
very moment. 


[38] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


But sixty dollars! Unheard-of sum! Why—that 
would pay for fifteen weeks at the boarding house where 
I was having trouble persuading the landlady that I 
was accustomed to two sheets on my bed instead of 
one. Incidentally, I never persuaded her. I had to 
move before I got two sheets. A dazzling future seemed 
now before me; and yet, even with the satisfaction of 
material success, I knew wood-carving was not what I 
was struggling towards. 

I next entered an interior decorating class and gave 
some time to designing wall paper; then came water 
colors; and then—but why go on enumerating all the 
departments of that Academy of Art? Suffice it to say 
that I entered every class in existence and was working 
every hour of the day and often in the evening; and 
yet, for some strange reason, I had not discovered the 
one class that was to mean so much to me. 

This discovery came about quite casually. I had 
noticed from time to time very untidy-looking students 
going in and out of a room on the basement floor; I 
hadn’t an idea what the white stuff was that covered: 
their aprons nor what the work was that they were doing 
—plaster and clay meant nothing to me then. One day, 
seeing all these strange-looking students go out and leave 
the door open after them, I crept in to see what on earth 
could have been going on in that room. It was a bare 
room with high windows, much like all the others; but 
what caught my attention at once was that the floor and 
tables and walls were covered with plaster casts. An- 


[39] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


other drawing class, I thought; but there were no easels 
or quantities of paper and pencils about. It must be 
some form of art that I had not heard about. I ap- 
proached an object covered with a damp cloth. I gin- 
gerly raised the cloth and found a wet clay bust in the 
process of formation. I next found a mound of soft 
clay. I picked up a handful, rolled it between my 
fingers and suddenly felt an almost overwhelming de- 
light course through me. The feel of that clay in my 
hand was entirely different from anything I had ever 
experienced before. Just the mere sensual part of it, the 
touch, seemed to fire me with something tremendously 
stimulating. 

Gradually it came over me that I was standing in the 
sculpture class room; and with this knowledge came a 
flaring resentment that no one had ever told me it 
existed. There I had been studying all those other 
things for months and not even hearing about this 
branch of art. I rushed upstairs, entered the secretary’s 
room and spent an impatient half hour awaiting his 
return in order to announce that I wanted to enter the 
modeling class at once—which I did under my now 
permanent name, Janet Scudder. 

The teacher received me indifferently, no doubt con- 
sidering me like many of the others who entered that 
field for a few months and, curiosity allayed, returned 
to the gentler arts. I was told to begin modeling— 
copying—a plaster cast of a foot, always a difficult 
thing to do even after years of experience. But the feel 


[40] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


of that wet clay in my hands was sufficient joy to 
overcome any moments of discouragement. I neglected 
everything else—even the money-making wood-carving 
—to work in the modeling room. I spent weeks on that 
foot, glancing only now and then at some shelves which 
were piled up with casts of faces and one or two figures. 
When, oh, when, would I be allowed to copy them! 
Two of them held special inspiration for me—a mask 
of a smiling boy and the head of aman. When I even- 
tually copied these two favorites and carried them home 
with me, I told my friends that the boy had no name, 
but the head of the man was a portrait of King Lear. 
I didn’t know any better—and no one in the class ap- 
parently did; at least no one took the trouble to tell me 
what these casts were. It was not until several years 
later, when I was wandering through the Louvre, that 
I recognized that boy as being Rude’s Neapolitan Fisher 
Boy; and still later, when standing spellbound before 
the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, whom should I meet look- 
ing down at me from the Victory group, by the same 
artist, but that face that I had so long thought was a 
portrait of King Lear! 

I cite this as an instance of the indifference of teachers 
of those days. Why weren’t we told and encouraged 
and stimulated with the stories of the casts we were 
- copying and their creators? Think how inspiring it 
would have been to a young student in modeling to 
be told that he was copying the work of one of the 
greatest French sculptors, an artist who had been 


[41] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


awarded all the groups on the Arc de Triomphe and 
who, through political influence, is only permitted to 
do one of them—though that one was admitted by the 
whole world to be the finest war monument in exist- 
ence. Stories like this go a long way in firing the im- 
agination of students; they make the work under way 
an adventure, romantic, dramatic; they lift it at once 
from the commonplace and put it in the realms of the 
ideal. 

As I say, I worked on that clay foot for weeks and 
weeks; as a matter of fact I very likely would still be 
working on it if it hadn’t been for the appearance one 
day of a most perfectly tailor-made girl with a really 
lovely head. She blew into the class room one after- 
noon when I was there entirely alone, asked for the in- 
structor and was on the point of going out when she 
happened to glance at the foot I was still struggling 
over. 

“How long did it take you to do that?” she asked. 

“T’ve been at it three weeks,” I replied. 

“Three weeks! Aren’t you ever going to cast it?” 

I blushed furiously. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t 
know what she meant. I took refuge in saying I didn’t 
know how to cast it. 

“Would you like me to show you?” 

“But—ought I? Would they let me?” 

She glanced round and smiled. “No one’s here. 
Let’s do it.” 

She picked up a blouse some one had left hanging 


[42] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


over a chair, carefully covered her pretty dress and 
went efficiently to work to cast my foot. She evidently 
knew what she was about, so I stood off and stared at 
her in amazement. 

She first looked about for a long piece of stout thread, 
which, when found, she laid very carefully down the 
center of my clay foot. Then she went to a corner of 
the room where basins and barrels of plaster and water 
were kept, filled a basin half full of water, dropped a 
small blue ball in it which colored the water lightly, 
sifted into this several handfuls of plaster which she let 
flow slowly through her fingers. When the plaster had 
settled down under the water, she took a large spoon and 
began stirring it from the bottom. After the bubbles had 
all disappeared, the basin was carried to my clay foot 
and my new and most capable friend—much to my 
consternation—began throwing little handfuls of the 
plaster between the toes, and finally all over the foot, 
until my work of weeks was entirely hidden from view 
in a thin coat of blue plaster. While this was hardening 
she very carefully pulled up the thread so that a small 
open seam was made, running down the center of the 
plaster. The process was continued with another mix- 
ture of clay, this time white, though in adding this 
second coat the seam was never covered. When this 
second coat was quite hard, she took a chisel and worked 
gently along the edges of the seam until the plaster fell 
apart leaving two empty parts—the mold of my foot. 
These pieces were washed thoroughly, soaked, oiled, tied 


[43] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


together with an opening left at the top and finally 
another mixture of quite liquid plaster was poured in 
until the empty center was filled. 

“Now—we'll leave it until to-morrow,” my amaz- 
ingly accomplished friend said, covering the whole mass 
with a cloth. “Jl drop in about noon and we'll see 
what luck we’ve had.” And before I could say any- 
thing or thank her or tell her how wonderful I thought 
she was, she had disappeared. 

The next morning I was afraid to remove the cloth 
by myself. I awaited impatiently the arrival of what 
I was sure now was a famous sculptor who had appeared 
out of the void and so suddenly returned to it. She 
came at noon, soon found a hammer and chisel and 
began chipping away the white plaster and then, more 
carefully, the blue; there, at last, gleaming at me in all 
the glory of fresh white plaster was my first piece of 
sculpture. 

There are no words that would express convincingly 
my sensations when I saw a plaster cast of my work 
there before me. It recalled vibrantly my hammered 
brass head of Medusa carrying off the blue ribbon with 
the peach preserves and the plum jelly. And that pretty 
girl in the lovely clothes! She was a rather wonderful 
experience, too, especially when she took me off with 
her that afternoon to her studio—her own studio!— 
where she modeled in all the privacy of her own home 
and gave tea parties—I have a suspicion that this was 
the more important and interesting part of being an 


[44] 


~- 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


artist to her—as it is with many local art celebrities. 
It was a new phase of life to me, one I had not even 
heard of ; and she was the first of that type that I was 
to meet all along my rocky path that‘ led towards art, 
the type that we must not criticize too much, for though 
they never do anything important themselves, they make 
pleasant little breaks in the drudgery of real’ artists’ 
lives; they give the young lion cubs tea, they sometimes 
go farther and give them luncheons and dinners and 
they cheer them up a bit by making them think they 
will arrive some day. I suppose these art patrons might 
be called the modern development of the early Medicean 
idea when the rich gave the struggling artist a lift, a 
square meal and a remunerative order. 

The real master of the modeling class came once a 
week to look at our work and criticize it. He went, to 
us, by the name of Professor, a rather oldish Italian 
named Ribisso, whom the Academy considered a blaz- 
ing light of genius because of a commission he was at 
work on, an equestrian statue of General Grant which 
was to be placed in Lincoln Park in Chicago. After I 
had been taken to his studio and had seen this statue 
in clay, marveling over the wonder of such a mammoth 
work, my future suddenly appeared before me, definite 
and clear-cut; nothing but a sculptor who confined his 
work to equestrian statues would do for me. I even 
went so far as to interpret that oil painting of a horse 
on canvas as being a divine demonstration which had 
come to show me in which direction my talents lay. 


[45] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Dear old Professor Ribisso! He probably never knew 
what he meant in my life. And how intently he would 
watch me at work, always criticizing and approving and 
encouraging in his gentle way! Once, when he came in 
and found me modeling with my fingers a statuette of 
a horse, I felt very guilty and tried to find one of the 
little wooden tools with which he always modeled. 

“Perhaps you are right,” he said, seeing my confu- 
sion, ‘‘to use your fingers instead of instruments. ‘They 
are much more sensitive.” | 

I was delighted with his sympathetic acceptance of 
what I had discovered for myself; and for once over- 
coming my shyness with him I went further and asked 
him a question. 

“Professor—will I ever be a sculptor?” 

“You are on your way to being one now.” 

“But I mean a real sculptor—a great one—like you?’ 

I can still see the flash of enthusiasm in his eyes. He 
took my hands in his—both his and mine were sticky 
with clay—and held them while he looked straight into 
my eyes. | 

“Tm going to tell you something. You've got it in 
you—the feeling for clay—the understanding—the— 
well—whatever you want to call it! One of these days 
you will be a much greater sculptor than I am. You 
are going way beyond me.” 

This was entirely too much for me. If I had been the 
crying sort I should have burst out right there in the 
classroom; instead, I washed the clay off my hands, 


[46] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


folded up my blouse, put on my hat and went out and 
walked and walked—TI hadn’t the slightest idea hes 
Some one who knew had told me that I had it in me! 

This carried me through all the rest of the season on 
wings. My feet never again touched ground—even 
when I got an order to do another mantel-piece, this 
time covered not only with grapes but also with 
acanthus leaves and dogwood, with a bowknot thrown 
in now and then just to keep any spot from being left 
uncarved; in fact, as long as wood-carving would fur- 
nish me with the means to continue the study of sculp- 
ture, I was willing and glad to continue doing it with 
an energy that amounted to fury. 

Even when the summer vacation came and the Acad- 
emy closed and I had to return home to go through 
some experiences that were actually more dismal than I 
had yet passed through, I kept those words going at 
white heat all the time. I wouldn’t let them get out of 
my consciousness. “One of these days you will be a 
much greater sculptor than I am. You are going way 
beyond me.” 

When I reached home that summer I found many 
changes—all for the worse. The family fortunes had 
completely disappeared. Hannah, old faithful Hannah, 
_ had been dismissed; my eldest sister had married and 
gone away; my playmate brother, Charlie, was drowned 
that year while swimming. My father and his wife and 
myself were the only ones in the house—a house never 
gay and now dismal beyond words with only the bed- 


[47] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


rooms and the kitchen opened. My stepmother did all 
the work and cooked and served our meals in the kitchen, 
while I did what I could about the house and added to 
the slender income by giving some lessons in wood-carv- 
ing. Then—as a climax to a situation that was already 
hopeless—my father announced one morning that he 
would not get up that day; he repeated this decision the 
next day and the next; and in two weeks he died—of 
no illness whatever, the doctor said, adding that he evi- 
dently had no desire to live any longer. No desire to 
live any longer! Those words of the doctor made more 
impression on me than my father’s death. Nothing I 
have ever heard since seems to me to express so poign- 
antly complete despair. No desire to live any longer! 
I was not able to visualize what was meant then; I 
can’t even now. Not to want to go on living is in- 
credible to me. Life is entirely too full of excitement 
and adventure—just the mere living of it—ever to 
think of voluntarily giving it up. 

I thought my father’s death would surely mean the 
end of all my ambitions, so far as further study in Cin- 
cinnati went; how he was ever able to send me there 
was never explained; but now that he was gone I 
supposed I must abandon all hope of returning to the 
Academy that autumn. But though life may be a fairly 
continuous gray, it is rarely all black, as that summer 
was. I still look back on it with a shudder. ‘Then, as 
is invariably the case, the silver lining began to show 
through ominous clouds. My eldest brother, now mar- 


[48] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


ried and living in Chicago, took pity on me and 
offered to pay for my next season at the Academy in 
Cincinnati. 

This third year probably I made some progress— 
one usually advances in some direction—though now 
that I think of it, it seems to have been almost a waste 
of time. I really learned very little. Everything there 
must have been frightfully dull and wanting in any- 
thing that developed originality or personality. Per- 
haps this was due to the fact that the Academy was 
run and directed almost entirely on Munich art school 
traditions. I went on modeling, with now and then 
help and encouragement from Professor Ribisso; but on 
the whole it seems to have been a time given in great 
measure to that ever-present wood-carving which helped 
out my living expenses. I was sure the fates or the 
devil, or whatever my evil influences are, were deter- 
mined to make and keep me a wood-carver. 

At the end of the second term and with another ~ 
ghastly summer facing me, my brother once more came 
to the rescue. He wrote that if I would come to Chi- 
cago, help his wife a bit with the housekeeping and the 
new baby, I could live with them and surely find some- 
thing to do in my chosen profession. 

My chosen profession? What was it, anyway—wood- 
carving? At first Chicago said it was. Soon after I 
arrived there I landed a job that was to me extraor- 
dinarily remunerative—a position as wood-carver in a 
factory at one hundred dollars a month. And I must 


[49] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


have been pretty good at that job, for they gave me a 
room to myself and were apparently pleased with my 
work. I went along blithely carving grapes and dog- 
wood and acanthus leaves for several weeks; helping my 
sister-in-law with the cooking and the baby; and on the 
whole probably happier than I had ever been before. — 
I was at last self-supporting. 

An alarm clock in my room was set for five o’clock 
in the morning. From bed I would dash into the 
kitchen, start the fire in the range, put the water on to 
boil, then rush back to dress. After I had made the 
coffee, prepared an enormous quantity of oatmeal—the 
amount of oatmeal I ate for breakfast during those 
healthy days would keep me going a week now—and 
eaten my breakfast, I would steal silently out of the 
house so as not to awaken the baby, and arrive at the 
factory at seven-thirty sharp. I often think of those 
days now, particularly when young men and women— 
sometimes old ones, too—complain bitterly that, though 
they know they have talent for the Fine Arts, they can- 
not study because they have no financial backing. Of 
late years a number of people seem to think that I was 
born with a silver spoon in my mouth, that I] am one 
of the favored few who could afford to follow a natural 
bent, while they, poor dears! have had to suppress their 
artistic inclinations because no one would give them a 
million dollars with which to study art. 

In the midst of my factory job and my happy life 
there suddenly appeared a walking delegate of the 


[50] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


wood-carvers’ union of Chicago; and, living up to his 
name, he walked straight into my private room, fol- 
lowed by the somewhat slinking figure of the foreman, 
and pointed an accusing finger at me, quite innocently 
at work. 

“What is that?” he asked, with the accusing finger 
still held in mid-air. 

“One of our best carvers,” the foreman replied. 

“A woman ?”’ 

The foreman nodded. 

“That won't do,’ the delegate continued. ‘We 
haven’t got any women workers in our union—and 
what’s more we won’t have them. ‘That woman’s got 
to get out.” 

By this time my fighting instincts—which usually le 
dormant until goaded into action—rose within me. I 
stopped work and faced the walking delegate. 

“Women have as much right to support themselves 
as men. You can’t stop my working here.” 

He nodded to the foreman to leave him alone with 
me. I began to feel less combative. The man’s ap- 
pearance and manner were far from reassuring. When 
we were alone he came nearer and lowered his voice. 

‘“"Now—look here. You’re a nice-looking girl and I 
believe you’ve got a kind heart.” This beginning was 
entirely different from anything I had expected. “And 
I don’t believe you want to throw seven hundred men 
out of work and make their wives and babies suffer. 
Do you?” 


[51] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


There was only one answer to that. But what was 
he driving at? 

“Well—that’s what'll happen if the boss of this fac- 
tory don’t fire you. The whole wood-carving union 
will go on strike to-morrow morning. Now—it’s up to 
you. What are you going to do?” 

I went to the foreman, asked if this was all true, was 
told that it was—and left at once. 

Another definitely black period, looking for some- 
thing, anything, to do and literally finding nothing! 
Once, in despair, I went into a little restaurant which 
had a sign up “Help Wanted” and asked for a job. 
They replied to my question by demanding to know if 
I could scrub floors and wait on the table. I would 
have taken that job—I’ve never felt that any honest 
labor was belittling—but I had to think of my hands. 
They must not be hardened and put out of commission 
for clay modeling. Scrubbing floors would have un- 
fitted me for sculpture. A sculptor must always keep 
his hands sensitive and supple; they are as important 
to him as to a musician. So I left the restaurant and 
continued my vain search for employment, walking 
miles and miles a day to save carfare and, being usually 
too far away to return to the flat for lunch, had to con- 
tent myself with a five-cent glass of ice cream soda. It 
can be quite filling—when you can’t afford anything 
more! 

Again a silver lining, this time in the form of Lorado 


[52] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


Taft, who I heard was employing assistants in his 
studio! It took me about ten minutes after I had heard 
this to reach the top story of an office building, where 
I was immediately admitted into what turned out to 
be a series of studios filled with clay figures in all sizes 
and conditions, scaffolds, ladders and a group of sev- 
eral young women working under the direction of Mr. 
Taft, who himself was just then modeling from life the 
figure of a nude girl. The whole scene was filled with 
enthusiasm and energy and concentration. I felt I had 
suddenly stepped into Paradise. 

When Mr. Taft came towards me, tall, bearded, with 
clear blue eyes and dark hair, and asked what I wanted, 
I came right out with it and said I wanted a job in 
his studio. 

“Have you had any experience in modeling?” 

I stretched the blanket somewhat and painted my 
experience in the Academy in Cincinnati with glowing 
colors, being careful not to admit that I had never 
modeled from life. 

He waited until I had finished and then glanced to- 
wards one end of the studio where strange-looking 
wooden cages and iron frames were standing. 

“Can you point up small models?” 

I hadn’t the slightest idea what he meant; but I 
nodded convincingly. 

“Good! Can you start in building up that group at 
once? I’ve got to get it along as soon as possible.” 


[53] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


I might as well explain right here what I was up 
against that morning, for with that experience my edu- 
cation progressed with leaps and bounds. The design 
for a group or statue is first made in a small sketch; 
from this sketch the sculptor models a very careful study 
in clay, usually one-fourth the size the finished work is 
to be; this is cast; over the plaster model is built a 
wooden frame, and from the top crosspieces strings are 
attached which fall to the floor. Beside this caged-in 
model is built another frame containing the iron arma- 
ture—the framework on which the enlarged statue is to 
be built up. ‘Then, by means of a compass, the distance 
from the strings to the clay model is measured, mul- 
tiplied by four, and sticks reproducing this measurement 
are attached to the armature and extend to the point 
which is to be covered with clay. These sticks, with 
small metal points at the end, serve as guides and are 
left uncovered until the work is finished, thus aiding in 
rectifying all mistakes and miscalculations. ‘This so- 
called “pointing up’ need not necessarily be done by 
an artist; in fact the best ‘“‘metteurs au point’”—as the 
French call them—often haven’t the slightest idea 
about modeling and are just careful mechanics. After 
the armature is covered with the first application of 
clay, thus making a working foundation, little sharp- 
pointed wooden pegs with heads are stuck into the 
plaster, these heads at exactly the distance where the 
surface of the finished statue will end. When all the 
necessary points are established, the strings and the 


[54] 


Photo A. B. Bogart, New York 
WALL FOUNTAIN 


Photo A. B. Bogart, New York 
BIRD FOUNTAIN 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


wooden frame are removed, and the work of building 
out the statue to the points indicated is commenced. 

Mr. Taft was very kind to me that morning; in fact, 
he was always most encouraging and interested in stu- 
dents working with him. As soon as I had been fur- 
nished with a sculptor’s apron, he led me to that bewil- 
dering armature from which all sorts of points and indi- 
cations were coming from every direction and explained 
very carefully what he wanted me to do. He never said 
that he was a little doubtful of my ability to do the 
work, but his detailed directions rather suggested it; and 
while he explained the work to me he told me what the 
group I was to enlarge represented. It was one of the 
four groups he was doing for the Horticultural Building 
of the World’s Fair. “‘Now—go ahead,” he ended, 
“and be very careful not to bury any of those sign 
posts in the clay.” | 

I went ahead, and in a few minutes was hard at it get- 
ting some of that ugly armature covered with clay. Soon 
Mr. Taft was back, suggesting that I use butterflies, and 
—fortunately for me—picking up a lot of those little 
pieces of crossed bits of wood and fastening them here 
and there to the armature to help hold the clay together ; 
otherwise I should not have known what he meant. 
But I was so enthralled in seeing something actually 
coming out of all that clay and iron and wood—some- 
thing that was slowly taking form—that I soon forgot 
all about my uncertainty over this new work. [I ran 
up and down the ladder and piled on quantities of clay, 


[55] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


quite unnoticed by all the others in the studio, who 
were too occupied with what they were doing to bother 
with me. 

When evening came on and the studio was to be 
closed, I was still racing up and down that ladder, un- 
aware that Mr. Taft and his assistant—Charlie Mul- 
ligan by name—were standing there watching me at 
work. 

“That’s enough for to-day,’ Mr. Taft said, a pleasant 
note of approval in his voice. ‘‘You’re getting on fa- 
mously. Only”’—and he made some comments and cor- 
rections and ended by saying he would expect me the 
next morning. 

I worked there many weeks and earned the reputa- 
tion of being the most industrious and hard-working 
assistant in the studio. My willingness to do anything 
and everything was sometimes imposed upon by Mr. 
Mulligan, who began to call me constantly away from 
my regular and absorbing work—the covering of those 
armatures—to help him with his plaster casting, mix 
plaster for him, wash out molds and fetch him pails 
of water when he could find no one else to do it. Once, 
when I was at the top of a ladder and lost to the 
world in seeing an arm develop itself, he called out to 
me to fetch him a pail of water immediately. It was 
no moment to be commanded and without stopping 
work or turning my head, I called down to him: “Get 
your own pail of water. J’ll not be a scullion to a 
Mulligan.” He took the roar of laughter from the rest 


[56] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


of the studio good-naturedly; and after that we became 
great friends; he even went to the extent of now and 
then fetching me piles of clay unasked. 

I soon became friends with the three other young 
women working in the studio, especially Mr. Taft’s 
sister, Zulh Taft. The companionship of working at 
the same thing always develops friendship and we four 
students lunched together and had great fun helping 
each other at our various tasks. 

When Mr. Faft’s personal work for the Fair was 
finished and ready to be cast for the facade of the Hor- 
ticultural Building, he was asked to take charge of the 
pointing up of a great number of statues and groups 
which had been contracted for with various sculptors 
and which had been sent to Chicago in models one- 
quarter the final size for enlargement in plaster. 

In the midst of this work he called us all together 
one day and said he had something important to tell 
us. My heart sank. I felt sure that he was about to 
say that his own studio was to be closed and that I was 
again to find myself without work—losing a job that 
was exactly what I had been longing for. 

He began very solemnly to tell us that he had just 
had a talk with the architect-in-chief of the Fair, Mr. 
Burnham, who wished him to take charge of all the 
sculpture enlargements for the exposition buildings. 
The Horticultural Building, now completed, would be 
turned over to him for a studio. He was authorized to 
engage as many people as he could find capable of doing 


[57] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


the work. The important thing was to get the work 
done within a year; nothing else mattered. 

“When I told Mr. Burnham that I had several young 
women whom I would like to employ,” he went on, a 
twinkle now in his eyes, ‘the said that was all right, to 
employ any one who could do the work—white rabbits, 
if they would help out. So you might begin right now 
calling yourself white rabbits—the kind that will re- 
ceive five dollars for every week day and seven-fifty on 
Sundays. What do you all think of it?” 

What did we all think of it! I don’t know what 
the others thought, but when I realized that I was going 
- to have a job that would last a whole year I left the 
studio with the feeling that I was either dreaming or 
had gone entirely out of my head. 

That wonderful year! Filled with work, filled with 
accomplishment and filled with what was considered 
in those days a very fat salary! (Taft’s studio was 
moved out en bloc to the Horticultural Building and 
the white rabbits moved in. We were ten by this time, 
including the men assistants, and we all took up resi- 
dence in a small hotel near the Fair grounds. My best 
friend among them was always Zulh Taft—now Mrs. 
Hamlin Garland; then there was Bessie Potter Vonnoh, 
who later became one of Chicago’s best known artists 
on account of her very lovely portrait statuettes; Enid 
Yandell, who is now Kentucky’s representative sculptor ; 
Caroline Brooks, afterwards the wife of the New York 
sculptor, Hermon MacNeil; and Miss Bracken, who has 


[58] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


carried off the laurels in our profession for California. 
We brought our lunch in paper bags and remained from 
eight in the morning until six in the afternoon; and 
when we got back to the hotel there was no question of 
what we would do with the evening; dinner and bed 
were the only things that appealed to us. 

When the first month’s work was finished and we 
took our place in line with hundreds of workmen to 
receive our pay envelopes, we were about the happiest 
white rabbits that ever existed. We rushed back to 
our rooms at the hotel, opened the envelopes and 
poured out the five-dollar bills—for some reason we 
were paid our hundred and fifty dollars in five-dollar 
bills—and carpeted the floor with them. We wanted 
to see what it felt like to walk on money. 

It was a wholesome, happy, stimulating life. How 
well I remember that vast hall of iron girders and glass 
walls and roof! It was like some giant’s studio; and 
surely crowded with giants, as we gradually filled it 
with those huge figures which, when finished, were 
hauled away and put into position on the buildings. 
In the winter we were kept from freezing by large 
braziers filled with glowing fires; in the summer we 
were saved from heat prostration by awnings that were 
stretched across the roof and constantly sprayed with 
water to make the temperature bearable. Scaffolding, 
iron armature, huge mounds of plaster, designs hanging 
from the walls and every one rushing about in mad 
haste; it must have been a fantastic sight! No wonder 


[59] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


all the architects and painters and sculptors—any one 
with anything to do with the Fair—came often and 
shared our paper bag lunch with us! We were the first 
art sweat shop to come into existence; and to see the 
white rabbits at work was one of the sights of those 
days. 

It was tremendously thrilling to see statues and groups 
put into place on buildings and stand before them and 
know that I had spent hours working over them. My 
energy was inexhaustible. No scaffold was too high for 
me to mount, carrying a pail of plaster in one hand and 
tools in another. Once, when I had climbed up twenty 
feet or more and was covering an iron bar with plaster 
that was soon going to look like a Valkyrie’s outstretched 
arm, I lost my balance, slipped and fell down between 
the statue and the scaffold. There was no chance to 
fall to the side or on my head; I was held perfectly 
upright by the objects on both side of me. But as I 
went dropping, dropping, dropping, very slowly—for 
now and then I stuck between the scaffold and the 
statue—I had heaps of time to think; and with my eyes 
shut, awaiting the shock which I felt was going to carry 
me abruptly into the next world, I was filled with 
regrets that my career should have been cut off at such 
an interesting moment. It was a terrible thing to die 
in the first flush of achievement. When I finally hit 
the ground with both feet, standing bolt upright, I 
shook myself very much as a cat does who has jumped 
from a fourth story window, looked about, smiled at 


[60] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


my friends who had come to pick up my fragments, and _ 
said: “You all look exactly as you did in that other 
world!” 

But I didn’t look the same; I was bruised from head 
to foot; there was not an unscratched inch on the whole 
of my long body; and for weeks I was unrecognizable, 
being a sort of study in blues and greens and blacks, 
though it did not occur to me to take even a day off 
from work after the fall. The courage and endurance 
of youth are truly astounding. 

All through those months, out of dank marshes and 
a neglected wilderness, the most amazing city of lagoons 
and palaces was rising about us. It was all pure magic. 
One day I would be passing hideous iron girders and 
shapeless masses of sticks and mud; and seemingly the 
next day I would be standing spellbound before an 
edifice that fabulous princes were surely to inhabit. 
Somehow it all made me think of that twentieth 
chapter of Exodus: “For in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is.” 

Towards the latter part of the year, I used to pro- 
long my walk to the Horticultural Building by wan- 
dering through the grounds to see the new marvels that 
had sprung up. One day, passing before what was later 
to be the Court of Honor, I saw a number of men 
placing a plaster boat in the center of a large basin. 
The lines of the boat caught my attention. It had the 
grace and sweep of a gesture—the gesture of a master 
of line. The next day the workmen had placed four 


[61] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


figures of women at the sides of the boat. Their 
plaster draperies seemed to float in the breeze. The 
next day they had oars in their hands. I could feel 
them leaning their weight against these oars, the muscles 
of their arms pleasantly taut, their heads thrown back, 
their nostrils extended with deep breathing—and more 
wonderful than anything else, under their force the boat 
seemed to move. I was late that day in arriving at 
work; and after I arrived I couldn’t do anything but 
think of those living women of plaster and that mar- 
velous boat. A few days later a figure of “Father 
Time” was placed at the prow; and a woman, “Victory,” 
blowing a resounding blast on a trumpet, stood in the 
center of the barge. 

That morning I stood there rooted to the spot, for- 
getting all about the timekeeper who had twice before 
docked me for being late at work. I might have stood 
there all day if it hadn’t been for a burly Irishman, one 
of the workmen putting the fragments of the fountain 
together, speaking to me. 

“Sorry, miss, but you’re in the way. Would you 
mind moving?” 

“It’s marvelous!” I went on talking to myself. “It 
can’t be the work of a human being!’ 

The man probably thought I was mad; and 1 was— 
with enthusiasm. 

“Who did it?’ I went on. ‘Who could have - 
done it?” 

‘“‘A gent in Paris. MacMonnies is the name. Makes 


[62] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


all these parts over there and ships them here to be put 
together. I don’t see why he couldn’t just as well have 
done *em here and saved us all this trouble of fitting 
parts together. He’d have saved himself the trouble, 
too, of coming over here and watching us.” 

“You mean to say the man who designed this is here 
in Chicago!” 

“Sure, miss—there he is now.” 

I looked in the direction of his pointing finger and 
saw a young man leaning on a stick watching the work 
with absorbed interest. 

“That young man!” I exclaimed. “Impossible!” 

Then I sat down on a fragment of plaster to look 
at this wonder of wonders; but the workman had no 
intention of leaving me in peace. His voice now came 
a bit louder and more complainingly. ° 

“Sorry, miss—but them things ain’t to set on; they’re 
to be put up on that fountain there.” 

I sprang up and made a step towards the creator of 
the fountain; I even got very near him, puzzled some- 
what by his foreign appearance—or at least what ap- 
peared to me at that time foreign; then shyness swept 
over me and [ turned away. But at that moment I 
knew that he was the one—and the only one—that I 
must study with in order to learn how to do the things 
I was burning to do. I must be his pupil. I must. I 
must. No one else in the whole world would be able 
to teach me sculpture. Yet—in spite of this tremen- 
dous certainty—I hadn’t the courage to go to him and 


[63] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


tell him all this; and just on account of this bother- 
some timidity I lost a chance which delayed achieve- 
ment. 

It wasn’t so many months later, however, when I was 
working in his studio in Paris that he introduced me to 
Mrs. Thomas Dewing, the wife of the painter of those 
lovely small portraits that were so much in vogue at 
that moment, I acknowledged the introduction and 
went back to work. When Mrs. Dewing had gone, 
MacMonnies asked me if I had ever seen any of her 
husband’s work. I told him I had and admired it 
immensely. 

“Then why under the sun didn’t you tell her so!” 

“Wouldn’t it have been officious on my part?” 

“Praise is never officious. Silence is much more so. 
If you like a man’s work don’t ever let an opportunity 
pass to tell him so. Even go to the extent of telling 
his wife, if he isn’t present. The more ingenuous the 
praise, the more touching it 1s.” 

“Then, if I had spoken to you that day in Chicago, 
you wouldn’t have minded?’ 

“Td have been tickled to death.” 

I have always remembered that advice, especially 
when I have tasted the bitter discouragement of having 
people come to my studio, look blankly at the work I 
was doing and say nothing. Many people fear to ex- 
press themselves because they do not know the right 
technical terms. I don’t want technical words—I want 
just simple everyday expressions that come from the 


[64] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


heart. They mean everything in the world to me. I am 
not working for the appreciation of the few; I should 
like to appeal to the world. Some one has said that 
even criticism is better than silence. I don’t agree to 
this./ ‘Criticism can be very harmful unless it comes 
from a master;And in spite of the fact that we have 
hundreds of critics these days, it is one of the most dif- 
ficult of professions. To be able to criticize intelli- 
gently, one must have knowledge of the technic of the 
art he is criticizing, he must have a sensitiveness that 
helps him to see what the artist is driving at, and he has 
got to have very broad sympathies. His work is con- 
structive, not destructive—as the amateur critic seems 
to think. Only lately I have had some very irritating 
criticism, due to a little draped figure of Diana I am 
now doing. I intend it to be placed in a garden, against 
a background of dense foliage; and I particularly want 
“it to look well in the moonlight. My whole conception 
of the work is for just such a moment. To get the 
effects needed I have had to exaggerate certain fea- 
tures; and it is there that the inexperienced critics burst 
forth. ‘‘But—the neck is too long! No one ever had 
a neck like that!” My friends evidently think my years 
of study have been wasted and that I have learned 
nothing about the normal length of a neck. Of course 
it is out of proportion, otherwise I would never get the 
silhouette I am struggling so hard to achieve. As a 
matter of fact, no measurement in the whole figure is 
correct according to nature. It is not a portrait statue, 


[65] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


my little Diana, it is an architectural ornament for a 
garden. 

Long ago I found out that it was necessary to break 
away from the honest following of nature; I had the 
sad lesson to learn that nature is seldom to be copied 
faithfully if effective work is to be accomplished. My 
most valuable experience in this direction came about 
through an order I had for a statue to be put up in 
Woodlawn Cemetery. My model was extremely beau- 
tiful; I made a careful record in the statue of her ap- 
pearance, her personality, her proportions; the whole 
work was done according to measurements. In my 
studio the statue appeared to be an exceedingly suc- 
cessful piece of work; I was particularly happy over 
the result of my labor; but after the statue had been 
put into marble, shipped to America, and I followed to 
see to placing it on a pedestal in the cemetery lot, the 
head seemed to have grown during the voyage to twice” 
its size and all the other features had changed ac- 
cordingly. Somehow the out-of-doors atmosphere had 
destroyed all the proportions the studio had created. 
Whistler said that “‘no man alive is life size,” and for 
that reason always painted his portraits a little under 
life size. To understand what I am driving at, try a 
little experiment. When you are looking at your friend 
across a garden, put up your finger and measure off her 
size. {You will be surprised to find that she is not even 
the length of your finger. Such an observation will 
help you to understand that it is impossible for a 

[66] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


sculptor, no matter how conscientious he may be, to 
make his statues according to actual measurements. 

When the state buildings at the World’s Fair began 
to be put up, Mr. Taft told me that he had been asked 
if any of his pupils could do the statues for these 
buildings; and added that he was inclined to risk a 
figure for the Illinois building to me. 

“The only trouble is that they want an Illinois woman 
to do it.” 

“T am an Illinois woman,” I answered, with very 
solemn face and meeting his eyes squarely. 

“I thought you were from Indiana.”’ 

“They will never know unless you tell them. I’m 
perfectly willing to come from Illinois to do that statue.” 

He agreed to keep my secret; and a few days later I 
was given a studio all to myself and began work on a 
statue with the impressive title of “Justice.” I went 
to work on that “statue” with a singing heart and de- 
lighted to get back to working in clay. For:a whole 
year I had been struggling with plaster—always a vastly 
unsympathetic medium to me with which to work. 

It never rains but it pours. I had no sooner started 
on the statue for the Illinois State Building than I had. 
a letter from Terre Haute, written by a public-spirited 
woman, Miss Susan Ball, who had raised a thousand dol- 
lars for a statue for the Indiana Building and who asked 
me to do it. This meant swerving back to my native 
state and coming from Indiana again; which I did the 
moment I had got through the work for Illinois. It 


[67] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


sounds as if I wore a coat of many colors; but those 
were days in which I had to do many things to get 
ahead—and the more work I had to do the merrier 
I was. 

Those two statues! I tremble now when I think 
what they must have been like. The Indiana one, called 
‘(Nymph of the Wabash,” was packed up after the Fair 
closed and sent to Terre Haute and placed in the Public 
Library, where I am told it still stands, now principally 
coats of paint which have been given it each year to 
renew its youth. I have never had the courage to go 
and see it. Nothing in the world would make me. And 
I only regret it didn’t have the same fate as “Justice,” 
which was destroyed by fire. 

MacMonnies once told me that it was an excellent 
thing for a sculptor to have some piece of his work de- 
stroyed by fire, flood or earthquake—anything that 
would get it definitely out of the way; for afterwards, 
in speaking of his work, he could say: ‘“Yes—this is 
pretty good; but you should have seen that thing I did 
for So-and-so. That was really my masterpiece. But, 
alas! it was burned in the great fire,” etc., etc. Think- 
ing of this suggestion, I have often been tempted to 
refer to my “Justice” which ornamented the [Illinois 
State Building at the World’s Fair of Chicago in 1893 
and speak of it tenderly as the one really epoch-making 
piece of work I have ever done. Only the fear that 
some one may have seen the statue and remembered it 
has kept me from indulging in such a reminiscence. 


[68] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


Those two statues brought on my first interview— 
which I interpreted as meaning that I had finally ar- 
tived. To be called on by a bona fide reporter who told 
me that he had been sent by his paper to write something 
about me and my work was a rung of the ladder I thought 
was years off. The interview was not successful. The 
reporter confessed at the outset that he knew nothing 
about art, that the week before he had been the reporter 
for the sporting page, but that if I would write what I 
wanted said he would see that it was published. I had 
so much trouble deciding what I wanted said, writing 
it, changing it, tearing it up and beginning all over 
again, that the reporter finally rose and said, “I ain’t 
got any more time to waste on you,” and left in disgust 
without anything. 

This incident makes me realize what wonderful strides 
newspapers have made during the last thirty years. The 
reporters and journalists who come to interview me now 
are invariably intelligent, well educated, charming peo- 
ple who are quite familiar with sculpture; some of them 
often put me to the blush with their information; and 
they always ask questions that are suggestive and make 
one talk well—as intelligent questions do. I don’t sup- 
pose there is a paper in the United States to-day that 
would think of sending the sporting editor to interview 
an artist. 

When our work was finished and the Fair finally 
opened, I stopped on in the little hotel near the gate 
where I had lived that whole year, feeling, as I had 


[69] 


MODELING MY. LIFE 


worked so hard over that Fair, that I could now afford 
to play with it awhile; and Zulh Taft and I did play 
with it; for weeks and weeks we spent each day there, 
passing most of the time at the art exhibits, but never 
forgetting the thousand and one things that were tre- 
mendously interesting in other directions—especially the 
Midway Plaisance, which we usually haunted in the 
evenings after dinner. Those weeks at the Fair were 
a part of my real education—and one of the most satis- 
factory ones any student could possibly have had. The 
best the world could do in every line was there to gaze 
at, study, understand and interpret. When the World’s 
Fair closed and I could no longer spend the days there, 
I turned away reluctantly—a vastly different young 
woman from the one who had left Terre Haute two 
years before. The wonderful, enthralling, suggestive art 
of the world had been spread before me; and I had 
thirstily drunk it in. And as for having had ambition 
before—that was like groping in the dark; my ambition 
now was reaching out into light that was fairly blinding. 

I came home late one evening, that autumn after the 
Fair had closed, and threw myself across the bed. Zulh 
Taft came into my room, glanced at me curiously and 
asked what was the matter. 

I looked at her with what she afterwards said was the 
expression of a saint seeing some beatific vision. 

“It’s all settled,” I told her. “I’ve just bought my 
ticket and paid for it. I haven’t got but three hundred 


[70] 


CHICAGO VIA CINCINNATI 


and fifty dollars left—but that’s enough. It will keep 
me going for a while.” 

Zulh grasped my hands, patted them and tried to 
soothe me. She thought I was in the grip of high fever. 
“Don’t talk any more just now, dear. You'll feel bet- 
ter in the morning.” 

“But I want to talk about it. I haven’t got much 
time left. I’m leaving the end of this week.” 

“Where do you think you are going?” 

“To Paris—to study with that man who designed the 
fountain.” 

“But you don’t know him! He may not take you as 
a pupil?” : 

“YT will meet him—and he will take me as a pupil! 
He’s not going to be able to help himself!” 

Zulh released my hands and went over to the window 
and stood there a long time silent. 

“All right,” she said finally. ‘If you’re going to Paris 
next week I’m going with you.” 


[71] 


III 
PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


PROVIDENCE must have had to work overtime to take 
care of Zulh Taft and me on that trip to Paris. We 
were much less experienced than those famous babes in 
the woods; even getting from Chicago to New York was 
something of an undertaking for us; and when we got 
on a boat that was to take us three thousand miles across 
the ocean and land us in a country, the language of 
which neither of us knew a word, the undertaking sud- 
denly became a very serious adventure. Seasickness, cold 
weather, no proper clothing for a winter voyage, no 
steamer rugs, and worse than anything else, no friends— 
all this very soon made us feel exactly like two kittens 
locked out of the house at night. Providence, though, 
working all the time, placed us at the table with H. Sid- 
dons Mowbray, the mural painter, and his wife, who, 
probably touched by our obvious need of help and ad- 
vice, took us under their wings. ‘They brought us fruit 
when we couldn’t—or our stomachs wouldn’t—take any 
other food; they loaned us steamer rugs of which they 
seemed to have a quantity; and when we got off at Cher- 
bourg and stared about us in hopeless bewilderment, 
they changed their plans for stopping off at Amiens, and 
went all the way to Paris with us just to see that we 


[72] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


didn’t get lost by the way. Incidents like this—which 
have happened to me all along my rocky path—have 
made me feel that the world is a very wonderful place 
to live in. Whenever I hear some one saying life is un- 
fair, people cruel, and everything generally wrong, I 
begin to wonder what is the matter with that person; 
the fault must be his; it is surely not the world’s. 

That first night and the next day in Paris convinced 
me that all the trouble of getting there was as nothing 
compared to the pleasure of walking along those tree- 
lined boulevards. From the moment we got off the boat 
—one of the most painful and mortifying experiences I 
have ever been through, due to our not having enough 
actual money to tip those seemingly hundred stewards 
standing in line—I had been surprised to find France 
just like any other part of the world I had been in; I 
mean there were trees and houses and rivers and grass 
and ground—just as there were at home. What exactly 
I had expected I don’t know; but it surely should have 
been something fantastic and strange—and it wasn’t; 
it was quite normal but exceedingly lovely. 

And Paris! I knew that first night that I loved it; and 
I have gone on loving it ever since. A whole year spent 
away from it is a great loss to me; and yet I like to leave 
it now and then so as to have the pleasure of going back. 
The hotel near the station where we spent the night, 
the unfamiliar twin beds, breakfast in our room the 
next morning—an unheard-of thing for us—and deli- 
cious coffee and rolls and unsalted butter are all parts of 


[73] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


a lasting impression. All that morning, still with our 
good angels, going to the Crédit Lyonnais to cash one 
of our small checks, driving through the city in a flacre 
with a coachman attired in blue clothes, a red waist- 
coat and stiff white hat, crossing one of those lovely 
bridges that span the Seine and finally being left at the 
Girls’ Club—inaugurated and supported by Mrs. White- 
law Reid—where we expected to find rooms and didn’t, 


as they were already full up, and our eventual shelter. 


in the Hotel de la Haute Loire, now Hotel Raspail, on 
the corner of the boulevards Raspail and Montparnasse 
—all these experiences kept us sailing way up in the air 
without any thought of getting our feet firmly planted 
on the ground. 

But that came only too soon—as it always does. 
When we found ourselves alone in a little room and 
had got over the excitement of discovering that the floor 
was tiled and the windows opened in and out instead 
of up and down, we immediately considered the price we 
were paying, counted our money and realized that life 
in any hotel was far beyond us. We both agreed that 
we had better start out at once to find cheaper lodgings; 
and very soon we were on our way along the boulevards 
looking anxiously for signs “A louer,’’ which some one 
had told us meant to let. Sandwiched in with this dis- 
couraging task was some rather hectic sight-seeing; only 
a night and day in Paris had convinced us that we could 
not possibly hope to remain there very long and we felt 
we had better see all the monuments as quickly as possi- 


[74] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


ble. Our slim savings seemed to vanish with magic 
rapidity. But no discouragement can be very real to a 
young woman who has decided to devote her life to sculp- 
ture and is seeing for the first time such marvels as the 
Winged Victory, the Venus de Milo, and the extraordi- 
nary modern collection in the Musée du Luxembourg. 
Under the spell of standing before these marvels—mar- 
vels that somehow dwarfed my impressions of the 
World’s Fair—I almost forgot the inspiration that had 
brought me to Paris. 

But finally, armed with a letter of introduction given 
me in Chicago by a friend of Mrs. MacMonnies, I called 
on my future master’s wife, hoping for her influence and 
assistance in penetrating into the Impasse du Maine stu- 
dios where the sculptor worked. I found out afterwards 
that many people called at the apartment on the Rue de 
Sevres with the same idea and that Mrs. MacMonnies 
usually proved herself a very good watchdog in the in- 
terest of her husband and his precious time. She invari- 
ably made the same reply to requests to visit the studios: 
“‘There is nothing of great interest going on there just 
now—a statue is being cast or something equally boring 
—but perhaps later on—” ‘The “later on” never came 
_ —for visitors were not invited to the studios. 

Mrs. MacMonnies was a lovely person and a very 
charming hostess; her dark Spanish beauty fitted in per- 
fectly with the setting of tapestry-hung walls ‘and rare 
old furniture; and I enjoyed my visit to her immensely. 
I went away definitely decided to have some day an 


[75] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


apartment exactly like hers. But in order to do this, 
I must first become a successful sculptor, and to become 
a successful sculptor it was absolutely necessary to 
study with MacMonnies. On the way back to the hotel, 
I planned all this out in detail until I suddenly realized 
that in relinquishing that letter of introduction—I had 
given it to the footman at the door—I had lost my one 
means of getting into communication with MacMonnies. 
What on earth was I to do now! 

From that moment sight-seeing lost all its charms; 
and of course, to add to my depression, those constantly 
diminishing funds seemed an ever-present sword of Dam- 
ocles ready to cut our trip short at any moment. We 
tramped and tramped up and down the streets of the 
Latin Quarter and found nothing that we considered 
cheap enough. One day, in utter despair, Zulh and I 
sank down on a bench on the Boulevard Raspail; she 
burst into tears; I sat with fixed eyes and tightly closed 
lips. The end of our adventure was in sight and I had 
never even so much as caught a glimpse of MacMonnies. 
I often go and sit on that bench now—it is just where the 
Rue Boissonade enters the Boulevard Raspail—and re- 
construct that scene. 

While we both sat there, the epitome of tragedy, two 
athletic young art students walked by, looked at us, 
stopped, and then came up tous. They were friends we 
had made in Chicago—Bryson Burroughs and his wife. 
They hardly waited to greet us before they asked what 
was the matter. We told them, Zulh still weeping, and 


[76] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


I, no doubt, still with the set expression of blasted hopes. 
Instead of laughing at us and making light of our trou- 
bles, they immediately began planning for us, said they 
were going off on a three weeks’ walking trip through 
Brittany and would let us have their studio at just what 
they were paying for it—which, thank Heaven, came 
within our means. The sun came out with a burst of 
glory; though, at least for me, there were some ominous 
clouds still hanging about. 

I told them I had not been able to see MacMonnies. 

“Why don’t you go to his studio?” 

“T don’t even know where it is.” 

They gave me his address and I wrote it down hastily. 
on a scrap of paper. 

The next day we installed ourselves in the Bur- 
roughses’ sky-lighted studio, which served all purposes 
—living, sleeping, eating, cooking and workshop; and 
late that afternoon, attired in the only clothes I had, a 
brown tailored suit, brown and tan checked golf cape and 
a Fedora hat—an outfit which had appeared appropriate 
for Chicago but was not exactly decorative in Paris—I 
walked slowly along the Boulevard Edgar Quinet on 
my way to MacMonnies’ studio. I don’t believe I have 
ever done such concentrated thinking as I did then, all 
centering about what I should say to him once I had 
actually got through the door into his studio. I was 
still composing and rejecting phrases when Number 16 
‘Impasse du Maine was there before me. A very cross 
concierge pointed out the entrance to the studios—at this 


[77] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


time MacMonnies had several in a row—which was in 
a delightful little courtyard filled with green plants and 
fragments of sculpture; and I made my way straight up 
to the fatal door. 

The door was closed, but as I stopped before it the 
most alarming sounds reached me, coming from within. 
Of course I was in a somewhat nervous condition, but I 
couldn’t believe my imagination was creating those 
sounds; they somehow suggested what a medieval com- 
bat must have been like; there were shuffling of feet, 
clashing of swords and shouts and yells in a language 
utterly unknown to me. I waited interminably for the 
_ noise to subside, and when finally a slight lull came, 
I knocked gently on the door. No answer. I knocked 
again, more firmly. This time the door was opened a 
few inches and a strange-looking apparition peered out 
at me—a very tall man dressed in white flannels carrying 
a sword in one hand and wearing some sort of a wire mask 
over his face. | 

‘And what do you want?” the voice from behind the 
mask demanded, frankly impatient. 

I saw that the door was likely to be shut at any mo- 
ment; I also knew that my whole career depended on the 
answer to that question; and, driven into drastic action 
by a combination of timidity and consternation, I 
gathered my forces and said in a loud, determined 
voice: 

“T have come all the way from Chicago to talk to Mr. 
MacMonnies, and I must see him at once.” 


[78] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


“Oh-h-h!”’ said the voice behind the mask. ‘‘Then— 
come in.” 

The tall white figure opened the door wider, ushered 
me in and showed me across a large studio to a small 
room which I took to be a sort of office, as it was fur- 
nished with desk and chairs. Here I was asked to sit 
down and wait a few minutes. This I did with consider- 
able satisfaction. I was in the sacred precincts at last; 
and I had evidently impressed that white-clothed, masked 
figure, with the importance of my mission. 

In a few minutes he was back again, still in the fenc- 
ing suit but without the mask, and showing a very attrac- 
tive, pleasant face, rather thin and long with a humorous 
twist to mouth and nose, gray-blue eyes, yellow hair and 
mustache, and a funny little tuft of hair growing 
straight out from the chin—all features that had im- 
pressed me when I saw. him standing before his own 
work at the World’s Fair. 

He lighted a cigarette, sat down comfortably and 
crossed his legs. 

“Well—fire away! What’s it all about?” 

_ I tried to keep my voice steady. “I saw your fountain 
in the Court of Honor at the World’s Fair. It was the 
most beautiful thing I had ever seen. As soon as I found 
out you had done it I began planning and saving to come 
over here and ask you to let me study with you. Well— 
here I am.” 

“T don’t take pupils.” 

“But—please—can’t I do something here? I’m will- 


[79] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


ing to work at anything. I’m not inexperienced. I 
worked a whole year with Mr. Taft on the World’s Fair 
statues. I’m sure I could do something useful about the 
studio. I'll promise not to be in the way if—if you'll 
only let me come for a little while. I haven’t money 
enough to stay long.” 

He went on smoking, inhaling deeply and sitting 
there as if he had not heard a word I said while I watched 
him eagerly to see what his decision was going to be. 

“Done much drawing?” he suddenly asked me. 

I told him of my work in the Academy at Cincinnati, 
all about my drawings from geometrical solids and de- 
tached features and the mammoth anatomical figure. 

“Never drawn from life?” 

“No.” 

“You must begin that at once. You must draw, draw, 
draw—all the time—all day—all night—until you know 
you can draw to the very best of your ability. You 
can never be a sculptor until you know how to draw.” 

He stopped to light another cigarette and while doing 
so glanced up at some drawings from the nude that were 
hanging on the walls of the small room. I followed his 
glance and for a few moments forgot all about my own 
problem in admiration of the drawings. They were en- 
tirely different from any Academy drawings I had seen 
before. The shadows particularly caught my attention 
—beautiful, rich, luminous shadows following exquisite, 
vibrating lines. 

“If I could only begin copying those,” I said, sud- 


[80] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


denly quite unselfconscious. “I mean—before I begin 
drawing from life.” 

“Those! Yes—they are mine. Well—suppose you 
do!” 

I didn’t immediately catch his meaning. “Do what?’ 

“Begin copying those. Put your mornings in on that; 
and in the afternoons you can work in the big studio 
modeling.” 

When it finally rushed over me that this was his way 
of telling me that he had decided to let me work in his 
studio, I rose quickly and hurried towards the door, my 
one idea being to get away before he had reconsidered the 
matter—for I instinctively felt that his permission had 
not been granted with enthusiasm. 

My hand was on the latch of the door when his voice 
stopped me. 

“Hold on there! Where are you going?” 

I stopped, unsteady with the fear that he had already 
changed his mind and was now going to tell me it was 
impossible. 

“What’s the matter?” 

“I! Nothing,” I managed to articulate feebly. 

*“‘Aren’t you coming here to work?” 

I nodded, swallowed hard and put out my hand. 
“Thank you. I’ll be here to-morrow morning at nine 
o'clock.” 

He looked at me in a way that told me unmistakably 
that he was thinking “queer duck” and opened the door 
for me. 


[81] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


“All right. To-morrow. Au revoir.” 

That first encounter with MacMonnies was somewhat 
characteristic of my subsequent relations with him. He 
was inclined to treat his own work and those working 
with him casually; I mean to say he never grew solemn 
and soulful, nor did he indulge in what might be called 
artistic temperament. He was a hard worker, knew 
perfectly well what he was about and did it; and he 
expected those working with him to do the same. At 
the time I met him he was about thirty and had got 
safely by those days of struggle and discouragement 
that everybody must pass through to achieve something. 
He had begun to study sculpture with Saint-Gaudens 
in America, and being very poor at the time, he had 
slept on a shelf in that sculptor’s studio in lieu of any- 
where else to go. When he arrived in Paris he went 
straight to Falguiere and studied with him before enter- 
ing the Ecole des Beaux Arts; and almost immediately 
he began to be noticed. His first year in Paris he car- 
ried off the prize of the atelier, even over the heads of 
many who had been there several years. Lack of funds 
soon drove him back to America, but he returned to Paris 
within a year. From then on his success had come very 
fast. His “Diana” brought him praise and honor at the 
Paris Salon; his “Pan” became known internationally; 
his statue of Stranahan, a most lovely portrait statue, . 
placed in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, was one of the first 
sculpture figures of our day to wear modern clothes, even 
to an overcoat over one arm and a silk hat in the hand, 


[82] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


a triumph of art over matter. But there is no need of 
citing the work that has made MacMonnies famous; any 
one interested in the development of art in America is 
familiar with his important contributions to it. During 
my studio days with him, he created an impression that 
has never faded—that of a delightful and stimulating 
man to work with. What he thought of me during that 
period, I do not know. He never told me. Sometimes 
I felt he considered me rather a bore, forcing my way 
in there; but after he had let me enter his studio he 
evidently decided not to bother any more about the 
situation. If I didn’t like it and didn’t get on with the 
others, it would be my fault; if I made good, all well 
and so much the better for me. I am inclined to think 
that his own struggle to get ahead had made him—not 
exactly unsympathetic—but a bit matter-of-fact about 
the struggles of others. Perhaps he felt very much as 
I do now; that if the student is talented he will get 
along—no matter what happens. But once he saw that 
I adored sculpture—as much as he himself did—he 
gave me the most enormous amount of time and atten- 
tion. He was never too busy or preoccupied to stop 
and give me a criticism—not an oral criticism, which is 
of no earthly good to a student of sculpture, but a 
practical demonstration of how to design and model. 
‘You can imagine that I went away with a whole 
cageful of birds singing in my heart that day; and 
they kept on singing all through the night and into 
the next morning. At last I had what my heart had 


[83] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


so long been set on; I was MacMonnies’ pupil, though 
not yet acknowledged, I found out the next morning 
when I arrived at the studio much earlier than the 
master and was admitted with frank suspicion by his 
two assistants—both Frenchmen—who evidently hadn’t 
been told to expect me and to whom I could explain 
nothing as they did not speak English and my French 
was still confined to “bon jour,” which doesn’t take 
you very far in presenting your case. However, they 
were quite polite and gracious—as I have always found 
Frenchmen to be—though when they saw me go to the 
small office I had been shown to the day before, take 
down one of the drawings and place it on an easel, 
they appeared slightly thunderstruck. They watched 
me closely while I unrolled my drawing paper, thumb- 
tacked it on a drawing board which I had brought with 
me, and then looked about for a stool. One was quick 
to see what I wanted and very kindly brought me a stool; 
and the other began to forage in his lunch basket for a 
piece of bread which he presented to me to use as an 
eraser; then, convinced that I was not there to plunder— 
as they might well have expected at first—they left me 
alone to go on my happy way. 

My lessons in drawing with the master began that 
morning and went on for weeks. Later he advised me to 
go to a life class and draw from life, which I did at Col- 
larossi’s Academy. ‘Then, finding the weekly criticisms 
of visiting masters inadequate and not very instructive— 
they consisted merely of “pas mal—pas mal du tout” 


[84] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


(not bad—not bad at all)—or “the feet are too small” 
or “too big”’—“‘the figure is out of plumb”—I finally 
got together some fellow students—by this time my ac- 
quaintance in the Quarter was widening—we took a 
small studio, employed a model and MacMonnies con- 
sented to come to us now and then to criticize our 
drawings. | 

But to go back to that first day. When I returned 
after lunch to put in the afternoon on sculpture, I was 
again ahead of the master; the two assistants were there 
and a new addition—the most dashing woman I had 
seen since my arrival in Paris, which is saying a good 
deal. She was standing in the middle of the big studio, 
one hand on her hip, the other holding a cigarette which 
she inhaled now and then, blowing the smoke vehemently 
through her nostrils. She stared at me as I entered, 
watched me go to the office and put on my sculptor’s 
apron, and continued to stare at me when I returned to 
the studio. Her glance was nothing less than annihilat- 
ing. When she looked towards the assistants and said 
what I felt sure was “What’s that?” and they told her 
that I was MacMonnies’ pupil her manner became even 
more disconcerting; she ended by coming up close to me, 
looking squarely into my eyes and making a face that 
was far from reassuring. I hadn’t the slightest idea who 
she was or what she was doing there; nor had I the least 
suspicion of what I was in for. After she had made the 
face at me, she lighted another cigarette and began tak- 
ing off her clothes, casually talking to the men all the 


[85] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


time and leaving her garments wherever she happened 
to be. When she finally got rid of everything except 
stockings and slippers she came over and lay down on 
the floor in front of me and began a perfect avalanche 
of French. Of course I didn’t understand a word and 
was beginning to feel extremely uncomfortable. I had 
heard something of the high jinks that went on in studios, 
but all the stories had been rather vague and indefinite. 
However, I determined to stick out anything that might 
happen—at least until MacMonnies arrived—and did 
my best to be polite to what I considered a wholly mad, 
naked woman. While she sat there hurling words at me, 
a man came in, went behind a screen, undressed, came 
out and sat down on the model throne; then MacMon- 
nies arrived and the two models took the pose for the 
Venus and Adonis group on which he was then working. 

Before beginning to model from the life group, Mac- 
Monnies looked about for some work for me to begin on. 
‘What do you want to do?” he asked me, as if undecided. 

“Anything you tell me,” I replied. 

He went towards a small figure of a cupid mounted on 
a tripod pedestal. ‘Ever done moldings?” 

“Miles of them—at Chicago.” 

“Then you might begin on the moldings of this tripod. 
Later on you can work on the sphinxes that decorate 
the corners.” 

He gave me some swift, concise directions, told me to 
sit on the floor where I could work more comfortably, and 
then went to work himself. Incidentally, I sat on that 


[86] 


SEAWEED FOUNTAIN 


Fountain on the estate of Mrs. Arthur Scott Burden, Long Island. 
Photo taken in Architectural League exhibit. 


MACMONNIES CRITICIZING THE WORK OF AMERICAN 
STUDENTS 


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PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


floor every afternoon for several weeks, doing my best 
to make those moldings exactly as he wanted them. 

When he had turned away and begun on the Venus 
and Adonis group there were three hours of peace—at 
least for me; but as soon as MacMonnies had left the 
studio and that woman was released, she once more be- 
gan her attack on me. By this time I had come to the 
conclusion that she resented any women students being 
in the studio and had made up her mind, as soon as she 
found me installed there, to shock me into leaving. She 
jumped off the model throne, sprang from chair to chair, 
raced about wildly, and finally, pretending to be over- 
come with the heat, made Adonis spray her with water 
from the syringe used to keep the clay moist. She did 
everything she could think of, but seeing that I went 
on steadily with my work apparently unconscious of . 
her, she rushed up to me and once more began a long 
dissertation in French. 

It was a battle royal between us for several days. She 
was as determined as I and, with the help of Adonis— 
not unwilling by any means to see what fun could be 
got out of me—she came pretty near winning out. No 
doubt I was a sort of kill-joy to their gaiety; no woman, 
especially a young, green, American one, had ever been 
permitted to work there. J was very much put to it to 
know exactly how to combat them; but I went on main- 
taining what I thought was the only attitude—one of 
indifference; sometimes I went further and pretended to 
be an innocent simpleton that was amused at their per- 


[87] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


formances, though praying all the time that they would 
not go too far and do something that would make it im- 
possible for me to remain. Ignorance of French served 
me well during those first days; in fact, I found it so 
useful that even months afterwards, when I began to 
understand what was being said, I pretended not to know 
a single word of French. It is much more difficult to 
get a rise out of a person who doesn’t understand off- 
color jokes and references and who receives everything 
said and done with a perfectly silly smile. 

Lily White! That was her name; though where she 
acquired it no one ever seemed to know; and her pro- 
nunciation of it—so entirely French that you never 
would have recognized it as being of Anglo-Saxon origin 
—surely suggested nothing but wholly Latinancestry. At 
any rate, she was the most outrageous, daring; conscience- 
less person I have ever encountered. They say she is 
now a most respectable wife of an important provincial 
official and the mother of a large family—which is very 
hard for me to believe; when I knew her she was a mad, 
gay creature, only serious when she was on the model 
stand, where she always respected herself and her pro- 
fession. 

One day, taking advantage of MacMonnies’ absence, 
she made Adonis dance about the studio with her in 
a whirling sort of cancan—now and then stopping to 
make low curtseys before me. Getting tired of my 
foolish smiles and continuous “‘joli-joli” of simulated 
approval, she sprawled down before me and repeated 


[88] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


over and over the same words, bent upon my under- 
standing her. Failing in this, she called some one from 
the adjoining studio to interpret. 

“She says she understands you are now drawing in a 
class which she calls the Atelier des Anges.” 

“What does she mean by that?” I asked. 

“The studio of angels—where the young American 
women are drawing. She wants to pose for the class. 
Will you arrange it for her?” 

By this time I had found out that she was considered 
the most beautiful and satisfactory model in the whole 
of the Latin Quarter, and was by far the best paid; and 
quite rightly, too, for she was a really very lovely crea- 
ture, very fair, with wonderfully radiant red hair and 
a perfectly rounded figure. Other artists had tried to 
get her away from MacMonnies’ studio and had failed. 
That she should have wanted to pose for our simple little 
life class meant that she was up to some new devilment. 
However, I said we would be enchanted and greatly 
flattered; and the scene ended with an appointment 
being made for the next week. 

When I broke the news to the class they were all very 
much excited over having the famous Lily White pose 
for them, not once guessing that she had been put up 
to it by the Impasse so as to get a good story out of 
the shocks inflicted on us. I was determined not to 
let her get the best of us. I told the girls of my expe- 
rience with her, what I knew about her, and prepared 
them for the worst; I even went further and counseled 


[89] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


those I thought might not be able to stand her antics 
not to come that day—though they did, every one of 
them; and then I arranged with the students who could 
speak French to go into raptures over everything she 
might do and tell her she was entrancing and marvelous. 
The scene was pretty well set and arranged before Lily 
arrived. 

She came in more chic than ever—she was always the 
last word in whatever the Rue de la Paix had pronounced 
smart—and looked us over with amusement in her eyes. 
We received her most formally, I taking the réle of old 
and intimate friend and presenting each student to her 
and calling her with great respect Madame White. We 
gave her the seat of honor, brought her tea and cakes, 
and sat about her in worshiping attitudes that might 
have intimidated a less daring person. After tea she 
asked if we were ready for her to pose. There was an 
immediate chorus of “Oui, oui, oui!’ and we all hur- 
ried to our places, while Lily, taking no notice of the 
screen behind which all the models undressed, began 
taking off her very few garments, finally standing before 
us in the Venus de’ Medici pose as though she were over- 
come with shame and modesty. Then she asked what 
position we wanted her to take, and when we told her 
anything she might choose, she sprang up on the model 
throne and sat astride a chair with her back tous. There 
was a suppressed chuckle from one of the girls. I 
frowned at her quickly and nodded to one who spoke 
French. She was quick to catch my signal and, clasping 


[90] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


her hands in ecstasy, exclaimed: ‘“What a superb pose! 
Grace itself?” And we all hurriedly grouped ourselves 
about her and began sketching. 

At this Lily threw herself on her back and twisted both 
legs about the chair. Again the girl who spoke French 
exclaimed: “Ravishing! What wonderful lines! 
Please keep that pose just a few moments.” Lily shot 
her a contemptuous but slightly puzzled glance, and im- 
mediately stood on her head. At this we all applauded 
and went hard to work as fast as we could. 

I was watching Lily all the time, and when our eyes 
met I nodded enthusiastically—to which she did not re- 
ply. Finding standing on her head somewhat more than 
she had counted on, she spread herself flat on the floor 
and began squirming about as if in agony. I rushed for 
a glass of water and insisted that she drink it; instead 
she tossed it over her naked body, shook herself violently, 
threw on her clothes and hurried away without a word. 
We had won and she knew it; and after that the “Studio 
of the Angels” went up very much in the respect of the 
Impasse. 

The next afternoon I got hold of the same interpreter 
and asked him to express our thanks to Lily for posing 
for us, to request her to come again as soon as she found 
it convenient, and offered her the money for the sitting. 
She listened to what was said, raised her shoulders with 
a shrug, and refused to accept the money. From that 
day I was never again troubled with the fear of having 
to leave the studio on account of Lily; though I must 


[or] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


confess this was somewhat helped along by Lily’s arrest 
a few days later. Her love of adventure had led her 
a little too far. She had appeared at the Quatz Arts 
Ball as an Ethiopian princess—in her favorite costume 
of no clothes at all—borne in a litter on the shoulders 
of twenty slaves. Not content with her tremendous 
success at the ball, she had insisted, when forced to 
leave at eight o’clock the next morning, in parading the 
whole length of the Boulevard St. Michel—still in her 
first birthday dress—for which she was arrested, im- 
prisoned and finally had to be paid out by the studios, 
which couldn’t get along without her. She was too valu- 
able a model to be left to waste away in prison and 
lose her figure—though she undoubtedly deserved the 
chastisement. 

In spite of all my strict attention to work and a seri- 
ousness which left no room for outside interests, stories 
of those marvelous Quatz Arts balls reached me little by 
little. As my knowledge of French progressed, I found 
myself listening and becoming more and more interested 
in them. They were the absorbing topic of conversa- 
tion for many months each year and were considered, 
not only the last word in everything outrageous, but 

seriously important on account of the artists who took 
"part in them and the gorgeous grouping and colors. 
Originated and controlled by the Beaux Arts students 
and run with a secrecy that added to their fascination, 
it was the great desire of every student to obtain one 
of the extremely restricted tickets. The more I heard 


[92] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


of these balls the more I became fired with the idea 
that my artistic education would be incomplete without 
attending one; but beyond obtaining a ticket was the 
even greater question of getting together a costume that 
would be considered worthy of the occasion. Every one 
who presented himself for admittance had to pass an 
examination by a committee of judges; and it was said 
that more were refused entrance than were passed 
through the gates. 

Of course I didn’t try to go that first year; I wouldn’t 
have even thought of it then if it had been possible; but 
a long time afterwards, when timidity and prudery had 
been somewhat overcome, I decided that the time had 
come for me to see one of those balls. Loie Fuller and 
I agreed that we would go together, and knowing a 
painter who was on the committee for costumes, we 
sought him out in his studio and asked him to help us. 

He looked at us, after we had stated our mission, and 
smiled whimsically. “I don’t think either of you ladies 
really want to go to that ball.” 

“We do,” Loie Fuller answered firmly. “And you 
must help us get there.”’ 

“Do you know what you must wear?” 

“We've heard the costumes are superb and are quite 
willing to go to any expense.” 

“Superb!” he repeated, still smiling. ‘““Yes—many of 
them are. But—that is not what I meant.” He turned 
and pointed to a small pile of tulle lying on a table. 
“Do you see that stuff? There are probably three or 


[93] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


four meters of it. Can you imagine how many costumes 
that is going to make?” 

We gasped. “How many?’ There wasn’t nearly 
enough for one. 

“That is to make costumes for forty women.” 

We went away discouraged—at least Loie Fuller was; 
I was concentrating on how I could get by this seeming 
impossibility. I went home and spent a whole night de- 
signing something that would clothe me sufficiently, and 
yet be startling enough to satisfy the judges. The ball 
that year was to illustrate Scandinavian Sagas. I looked 
up the wearing apparel of heroes and heroines of that 
remote age and finally found a picture of a viking that 
appealed to me immensely—the appeal no doubt due in 
some measure to one of those Longfellow illustrations 
that I had copied so many years before. Yes—I would 
go as a viking—a sort of mythical viking! 

I got every one I knew to help me and really achieved 
something that I thought was tremendously eftective— 
and which still clothed me sufficiently to have been worn 
in Terre Haute without shocking any one. It took me 
hours to dress, that night of the ball, and at last, when 
the group with which I was going came for me, they 
all approved of my costume. We went on foot, as was 
the habit of Quatz Arts Ball groups, and arrived at the 
entrance in high spirits. We were shown into a small 
antechamber and found ourselves before a row of judges. 
They looked us over, examined our costumes, expressed 
great admiration and praise, retired to confer in whis- 


[94] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


pers and then returned and informed us that we had 
been found entirely satisfactory and could pass at once 
into the ballroom. At a gesture from the judges, one 
of the two entrance doors was thrown open and we 
were told to enter. Beyond the door, carefully barring 
any vision of what was beyond, hung a heavy red cur- 
tain. We passed the door, preening ourselves for a 
spectacular entrance, heard the door slam back of it, 
brushed aside the red curtain and found ourselves in a 
dark, dank alley. 

I didn’t know what had happened until one of my 
companions explained that this was a trick the judges 
always employed when they found your costume un- 
worthy of the ball—they never told you so; they merely 
had you shown to a door that put you out in the street. 

When I got home that night, footsore and weary, 
Zulh Taft rubbed her eyes and asked what had hap- 
pened; she hadn’t expected me back until morning. 

“Nothing happened,” I grumbled, “except that I had 
too many clothes on.” 

After Lily White found out that she couldn’t scare 
me away from the studio, I worked along much more 
peacefully; and when the moldings of that pedestal were 
finished, MacMonnies told me to work on the figure of 
the cupid which was only roughly indicated. A little 
Italian boy came every afternoon to pose and I worked 
directly from the model, in spite of the fact that I had 
never done this before and must have made pretty sorry 
work of it. At any rate, I was learning something every 


[95] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


day in watching the master work on those two figures 
of Venus and Adonis. One day he looked over what 
I was doing, said he would spend that afternoon on 
the figure of cupid and that I could watch him. It was 
a marvelous thing to see him introduce life into that clay 
figure. He had the most extraordinary facility in model- 
ing and in what seemed a few minutes to me he had 
changed a mud baby into a breathing, living work of art. 
I learned more during that afternoon than I could have 
learned in a lifetime in a regular art school. I even for- 
got, for the first time, the overpowering scent of garlic 
that emanated from the vicinity of that little boy model. 
At that time I hadn’t been in Paris long enough to get 
accustomed to this odor, though I had tried various means 
of counteracting it—especially with that little Italian 
fellow. My most successful attempt had been to feed 
him with large quantities of peppermint lozenges; this, 
however, was a short-lived success, for MacMonnies, 
in criticizing the work one day, exclaimed somewhat 
harshly: ‘Good Lord, Miss Scudder, how many pounds 
of peppermint do you consume a day!” It seems the 
scent of peppermint was as unbearable to him as garlic 
was to me. 

Ever present, permeating, robbing the days of com- 
plete happiness, was the knowledge of that sword of 
Damocles hanging over us—the need of money to keep 
us on in Paris. I had put aside the amount necessary to 
pay steerage passage back to New York; nothing under 
the sun would have made me touch that; but very soon 


[96] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


the certainty that I had better begin making plans to re- 
turn home took all the joy out of life. There I was, 
learning my life work by leaps and bounds, and yet 
forced to give it all up because I had no money left. The 
windfall that solved this problem for many weeks was 
the appearance of some friends from Chicago—Mr. and 
Mrs. Kohlsaat. Mrs. Kohlsaat amused herself im- 
mensely in the Paris shops; but her husband found time 
hard to kill away from his beloved newspapers. He 
became interested in the Latin Quarter and the life Zulh 
Taft and I were living there and, more for an excuse to 
come over often than in admiration of our talents, he 
gave us an order to do a portrait bust of him, stipulating 
that we do it together—of course a quite impossible idea. 
But the fantastic idea was made entirely reasonable 
when he said he would pay us three hundred and fifty 
dollars for it. We needed money so badly at that mo- 
ment that, after we heard what he was going to pay us, 
we would have done the work with our eyes shut if he 
had suggested it. And probably any one who saw the 
finished work thought that was exactly the way we had 
done it. Just before he came for the first sitting, we 
drew lots to see which one of us should do the face and 
which the back of the head. We had agreed that the 
ears should be the dividing line. I drew the latter. We 
went to work merrily, always entertained by our sitter, 
who told us exciting stories of world conditions, politics, 
finances, then usually ended the sitting by carrying us 
off to some smart restaurant that we would otherwise 


[97] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


never have seen. Not only was that bust finished, but 
it was actually cast in bronze, and is probably at this 
moment inhabiting some dark, hermetically sealed closet 
in Chicago. At any rate, it served its purpose, gave us a 
very jolly time and prolonged our stay in Paris. 

When I returned to MacMonnies’ studio—doing that 
bust had kept me away several weeks—he asked what 
had happened to me. I replied proudly that I had 
been doing a portrait bust of a famous American; and 
then added that I was going to remain indefinitely in 
Paris. 

My next work in the studio was on Shakespeare’s coat 
—that elaborately embroidered coat that covers the fig- 
ure that now stands in the Congressional Library in 
Washington. I worked on it patiently for three whole 
months, never the least bit bored by the somewhat me- 
chanical work, as I had plenty of time to study and 
learn a hundred things each day from the varied sculp- 
tures that were being created and executed about me. 
Besides, there was something thrilling in store for me 
at the end of that season of embroidery—as there 
always is after long periods of monotony. 

MacMonnies, after he had seen his Bacchante placed 
in the Musée du Luxembourg, had always wanted to 
change the surface effect. Yes—that same famous Bac- 
chante that had rocked Boston to its foundations when 
a lover of art had bought a bronze reproduction of it 
_and presented it to the Library; and which had made 
New England conscience flare up and refuse to accept a 


[98] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


statue that depicted a dancing mother who held a baby 
in one hand and a bunch of grapes in the other. New 
York conscience must be less sensitive, as the Bacchante 
now has a position of honor in the Metropolitan 
Museum. In order to experiment with the effect de- 
sired, MacMonnies had had a replica made of this 
statue in plasteline. For a day or two he worked with 
the surface himself and when he had found what he 
wanted and how it should be done, he called me to look 
at it, showed me the finished surface of a few inches— 
the most beautiful surface imaginable—then told me 
he wanted me to go over the whole figure in the same 
way, very lightly and gently, using a great deal of 
vaseline so as not to disturb the actual modeling. He 
ended by telling me to take my time, not to hurry, as 
the work should occupy several months. 

I looked longingly at the Bacchante and the work he 
had shown me how to do; and then very slowly I shook 
my head. 

“What’s the matter now?’ he exclaimed impatiently. 

“I’m sorry—terribly sorry—but I can’t do it. Ive got 
to go home. My money’s all gone.’ 

Only the night before Zulh and I had counted our 
funds and found the proceeds from the Kohlsaat bust 
had vanished in the same way preceding amounts had. 

“How much does it take for you to live on here?’ 
MacMonnies asked me. 

“T could manage to scrape along on fifty francs a 
week.” 


[99] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


‘“Well—Ill give you that. Your work is worth that 
much to me.” 

To be told by MacMonnies that my work was worth 
anything to him—the man to whom I would have paid 
any amount that I might have had just for the privilege 
of studying with him—created a feeling of gratitude that 
has ever since been constantly with me; and not only did 
I feel gratitude but tremendously stimulating encour- 
agement. I hadn’t been in Paris a year and the master 
I had picked out of the whole world had told me that my 
work was worth something to him! No wonder, from 
that moment on, I spent every waking hour trying to do 
something that would be really important and useful 
to him—a desire that eventually led me into making an 
enemy who caused me to leave Paris much sooner than I 
could have wished. 

The fact that MacMonnies fell ill soon after I was 
put on the salaried list made me all the more anxious” 
to prove myself worthy of that fifty francs a week. 
Though the master came almost daily to the studio and 
spent a short time there, he was not able to work and he 
did not take his usual keen interest in everything that 
was going on. During this time a statue of Victory— 
now at West Point—was being enlarged in clay by one 
of his French assistants. I had often stood in rapt 
admiration before the plaster model of this statue—a 
model about two feet high; and what had particularly 
caught my attention were the wings, which were very 
long and perfectly flat—very much like the wings of 


[100] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


the Pompeian Victory in the Naples Museum—and had 
great style. I noticed, as the assistant progressed with 
the enlargement, that he had lost sight of the fact that 
the wings were flat; or else he had decided to improve on 
the master’s design; at any rate it seemed to me that he 
was working entirely in the wrong direction; and one 
day I saw him holding a pigeon’s wing in his hand and 
using it as a model. The result was lacking entirely in 
the dashing effect of the little cast; the wings were be- 
coming concave and weak. I resented this change im- 
mensely. Besides, a real Victory wouldn’t be able to 
fly at all with pigeon wings; she wouldn’t be able to rise 
from the ground. 

MacMonnies, being ill all the weeks this work was 
progressing, had never taken the trouble to look up as 
_ high as those wings and had not yet climbed the scaf- 
folding to examine them. Anyhow, he expected his 
assistants to follow closely his models. Once having 
assigned them a piece of work, he allowed them to go as 
far as they could without much comment on his part. 
When it seemed that the work was at a standstill, the 
assistant having gone as far as he could from the plas- 
ter model, MacMonnies would say: “That’s enough. 
Work on something else.” And then he would complete 
the work himself. No assistant was ever allowed to 
touch a statue or group after the master had taken it 
over. MacMonnies never employed “ghosts” to do his 
work; he did it himself; and “pot boilers” were un- 
known in the Impasse du Maine studios. Though he 


[ror] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


often said that artists should not waste their time in do- 
ing anything that others could do for them, he applied 
this theory only to the mechanical part of building up 
large pieces of sculpture. 

All this worked on my mind until watching the 
changes going on in those wings became a sort of ob- 
session with me; I couldn’t think of anything else; I 
thought the statue was going to be ruined, and yet 
what could I do! I had been told to work on the sur- 
face of the Bacchante and not on the wings of the 
Victory. 

Finally I could stand it no longer; and finding Mac- 
Monnies wandering listlessly about the studio one day, 
I asked him what I was going to do when I finished the 
Bacchante. 

“Anything you wish,” he answered indifferently. 

“T’d like so much to work a bit on those wings!” I 
pointed up to the Victory. 

“All right. Why not! Anything you please.” _ 

The next day was Sunday. I always worked in the 
studio on Sundays as I then had the place to myself and 
enjoyed a whole day without anything to distract my 
attention. I got there early the next morning—I had 
been given a key to let myself in with—impatient and 
excited with the idea of getting those wings into shape 
before any one could stop me. I looked about for the 
largest and sharpest modeling tool I could find, mounted 
the scaffolding and spent two heavenly hours scraping 
and cutting off plateline from one of the wings, uncon- 


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PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


scious of the fact that the floor, twenty feet below, was 
rapidly becoming littered with chunks and mounds of 
chipped-off plasteline feathers. Those weeks and weeks 
of the assistant’s work were ruthlessly being demol- 
ished; my own idea was to get it completely obliter- 
ated before evening so that no one would know how 
many layers I had sliced away; nothing must stop me 
from flattening out those wings until they resembled the 
original model. 7 

In the midst of my frantic efforts I heard a key turned 
in the studio door. I stood quite still, petrified with 
fear. I felt sure that if the assistant came in at that 
moment he wouldn’t hesitate to murder me right there 
and entomb my body in one of the plaster casts—as had 
recently been done in one of the Grand Guignol horrors. 
But luck was with me. The door opened slowly and dis- 
closed MacMonnies. He looked at the floor, now piled 
high with plasteline, started and leaned against the wall, 
evidently thinking the whole statue had fallen and 
broken into fragments; then his glance traveled up the 
scaffolding until it reached me. 

“What in the name of God has happened?” he ex- 
claimed. : 

Terror or excitement or embarrassment invariably 
makes me a bit shrill. I called down to him in a loud 
voice: 

“It just had to be done, Mr. MacMonnies! Come up 
here and see for yourself! “You haven’t looked at the 
enlargement of these wings. That man has been putting 


[103 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


pigeon wings on your wonderful Victory. Come up and 
look at them!” 

He came up very slowly, a step at a time, for he was 
still quite weak; and as he drew nearer and nearer my 
fright increased. What if he should say the assistant 
had done right and I all wrong! He walked slowly 
round the platform, looked carefully at the wing I had 
demolished—at least flattened out—and then at the 
other large pigeon wing which I hadn’t had time to 
touch. After this he looked at his little plaster model 
that was standing beside me—in more ways than one as 
its flat wings spoke convincingly of what I had been 
trying to do—threw another glance at the enlarged 
wings, said nothing, climbed down the scaffolding, went 
to his desk to get a letter he had come for, crossed to the 
door, fitted his key in the lock, held the door open and 
then, for the first time, met my agonized eyes. I may 
have passed through moments equally terrifying—but I 
don’t seem to recall them. 

“All right, Miss Scudder,” he said quietly. ‘Go on— 
just as you have been doing.” 

The rest of the day was pure bliss, spent in getting 
both those wings perfectly flat and putting into them 
the style of the original little model. Before I left that 
night I got a shovel and carefully piled all the telltale 
plasteline into barrels; and the next morning, you may ~ 
be sure, I avoided meeting that assistant as long as pos- 
sible. 

It was a great satisfaction to have gained my point; 


[104] 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


and more important still, to be allowed to finish those 
wings myself—not a very difficult work, as the model 
had been so carefully executed by the master. I only 
had to copy what had already been so precisely done. 
But the assistant! Of course, after that he only bided 
his time to get his revenge. I don’t blame him. Any 
one would have resented such interference. But I bear 
him no grudge. Years later, when we met in New York, 
we always talked of the jolly times we had in ‘‘Mac’s” 
studio. } 

When the Victory was completed, MacMonnies took 
me with him to the studio in the Rue de |’Arrivée, where 
the enlargement of his Quadriga for the arch that now 
stands at the entrance of Prospect Park, Brooklyn, was 
being done. I had seen the designs and some of the work 
for this group of four horses, chariot, and three women; 
but it was a revelation to find all the horses enlarged 
to their huge size and standing about the large studio 
awaiting the final work of the master. 

While I was gazing at them, MacMonnies picked up 
a tool, told me to watch what he was doing, began work- 
ing on one of the horses and told me to reproduce on the 
other three horses what he was doing. His confidence in 
me during those days had made me a perfect tool to re- 
peat whatever he did. I never thought of trying any 
tricks of my own—as that assistant had; I was too com- 
pletely imbued with admiration and appreciation of the | 
master’s work to think of anything but reproducing it 
as exactly as I could. 


[105 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


It was when the work on this Quadriga was finished 
that the assistant found his long-awaited opportunity. 
He came to the studio one day when he was sure of find- 
ing me alone and told me he had just heard some dis- 
couraging news: the worked-over Bacchante had been 
cast and, under the heat caused by the chemical action 
of the plaster while “setting,” the surface had melted 
before the mold had hardened—all on account of too 
much vaseline having been used on the surface model- 
ing. Months of work lost! After letting this distress- 
ing recountal sink in thoroughly, he went on to tell me 
that he had just seen MacMonnies that morning and 
that he had been told by him that my work on the 
Quadriga was wholly unsatisfactory and that he was 
going to have it done over entirely by some one else. 

My reaction to these two discouraging stories was vio- 
lent and definite. JI didn’t think or reason or consider 
anything. I felt there was only one thing for me to do; 
and the quicker I did it the better for every one con- 
cerned. I was an utter failure; I had been engaged and 
paid by the master to work for him—and my work was 
proving worthless, besides being a great loss in time and 
money to him. 

As soon as MacMonnies arrived at the studio—and 
without waiting for him to express the disappointment 
the assistant had told me he felt over the Quadriga—l 
went up to him and announced abruptly that I was go- 
ing to New York. 

‘What’s the matter now? Money given out again?” 


[ 106 | 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


I turned away, seeking for some good excuse and of 
course never thinking of telling him the real cause—a 
sort of overwhelming despair at everything he gave me 
to do turning out badly—and grasping at a reason that 
was about as unfortunate as anything I could have 
chosen. | 

“I think it’s time I was getting back to my own coun- 
try. And—TI think it would be a great advantage to me 
now to study awhile with Saint-Gaudens. Will you 
give me a letter to him?” 

A peculiar expression flitted across his face; then he 
went quickly towards the table where he kept writing 
materials. 

“Of course I'll give you a letter to Saint-Gaudens— 
half a dozen if you like. When are you leaving—to- 
morrow ?” | 

His haste, his indifference, his apparent desire to get 
rid of me at once hurt me deeply; it also went a long 
way in convincing me that what the assistant had said 
was true. 

“No. The end of the week—TI think.” 

“All right—I’ll get several letters ready for you. By 
the way—you must come to lunch with me before you go. 
You’ve never met my wife; have you? Come along to 
lunch now.” 

I didn’t tell him I had met his wife the first week I 
had been in Paris; in fact, I said nothing. I was tasting 
the bitter dregs of hearing no kind words from the man 
who had influenced my work to such an extent and one 


[107 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


whom I had so consistently admired and gratefully wor- 
shiped throughout that year. I hadn’t expected this 
off-hand way of accepting my departure; I had looked 
for some expression of regret, some surprise, some kind 
words; but this casualness, this immediate discussion of 
my plans—when I had none—seemed to me terribly 
indifferent, almost brutal. 

Years later, when we were out for a long tramp over 
the hills above Giverny, and were talking over those 
days in Paris, MacMonnies turned to me abruptly and 
said: 

“Look here, Janet, I always wanted to know what it 
was that really decided you to leave Paris so suddenly 
that time. It’s long enough ago now for you to tell me.” 

I smiled a bit sadly. “Didn’t you ever really find 
out?” 

“T never had the slightest idea. As a matter of fact, 
I don’t mind telling you now that I was annoyed at 
you—hurt, too.” 

“You! Why?” 

“Oh, somehow I had the feeling that you had come 
to the conclusion that you had got all you could out of 
me and felt that you had better go on to Saint-Gaudens. 
Perhaps it was a foolish sort of sensitiveness. Anyway 
—that’s what I felt.” 

The whole incident rushed back to me with its dis- 
couraging details and I recounted it to him just as it 
had happened. He listened with increasing surprise and 
amazement. 


[108 | 


PARIS AND MACMONNIES 


“There wasn’t a word of truth in it!” he burst forth. 
“The horses were cast and put into bronze just as you 
last saw them in the studio. No changes were made and 
none had been discussed. When you left the studio I 
lost my best assistant.” 

All of which goes to prove that misunderstandings 

should be threshed out with perfect frankness and hon- 
esty on both sides; otherwise the whole course of one’s 
life may be interfered with. That misunderstanding 
with MacMonnies surely changed mine. If it hadn’t 
been for that, I would never have taken that very defi- 
nite step of leaving Paris and trying my luck in New 
York too soon. 
_ I suppose many young women have had the pluck to 
face New York under the circumstances I did; though I 
sometimes wonder if I would dare do it again. After 
buying my ticket and carefully calculating every ex- 
pense—especially the tips to stewards, which I always 
remember so poignantly not being able to give on that 
first voyage—I found that I would arrive in New York 
with exactly twenty-eight dollars, six letters of introduc- 
tion to Saint-Gaudens and the address of a lodging 
house for women where I was told I could live on prac- 
tically nothing. 


[109] 


IV 
STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


~ 


AN ocean voyage gives one leisure to reflect upon the life 
one has left behind and make a few guesses about what 
the future holds in store; though I must say I found 
myself, after France had hidden herself in a dense Chan- 
nel fog, thinking entirely of Paris with very intense 
longing and giving no thought at all to New York. 
The past year had been so filled with work, learning 
the technique of sculpture, and so entirely crowded 
with impressions and ideas, that I had had little time to 
think of myself and my actual daily existence. Nothing 
seemed real except that studio in the Impasse du Maine 
and what went on there. But on a boat, tucked away un- 
der a comfortable steamer rug—I had not forgotten to 
bring one along this time—I found myself reliving little 
events that had made up what might be called my mate- 
rial existence in Paris. 

When our friends had returned from their walking 
trip, Zulh Taft and I had been obliged to seek other 
quarters; and this time we were lucky enough to get into 
the Girls’ Club, which had been too full to take us when 
we first arrived in Paris. It was a delightful old house 
in the Rue de Chevreuse, under the direction of a charm- 


[110] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


ing French lady who took a personal interest in the young 
women there and mothered each one of us individually. 
The students who lived in the house represented every 
branch of art—painting, sculpture, music and architec- 
ture; and just the mere fact of living there, surrounded 
by so many of them, all working with enthusiasm, was 
tremendously stimulating. We were made extremely 
comfortable, had the privilege of using the large library 
and were often entertained with musical parties and ex- 
hibitions got up by the more advanced students; but 
best of all was the fact that the expense was so little that 
even I was able to live there until I left Paris. 

I regret deeply that this delightful club for art stu- 
dents has now been taken over by university scholars; 
and especially at a time when art students need such a 
place more than ever, due to the tremendous increase in 
the cost of living in Paris. Men students still have their 
club, which was established by Mr. Wanamaker; but so 
far as I have been able to find out, women art students 
to-day—I am speaking of the poor ones—are forced to 
live about in squalid rooms, go out to cheap restaurants 
for their meals which are not nearly so good to-day as 
they were when I was a young student; in fact, cheap 
food in Paris to-day is very bad food. I have always 
felt a personal gratitude to Mrs. Whitelaw Reid for hav- 
ing started that Girls’ Club; and I realize the loss to 
present-day art students since it has now been turned 
over to university scholars, who, when they arrive in 
Paris, are usually older and more experienced than art 


[111] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


students, besides often having some sort of scholarship 
which relieves them of the burden of expenses. 

In retrospect, that year in Paris increased in charm; 
even now I realize what a friendly place it must have 
been to a young woman artist. For that matter, it still 
is. Nothing in the world enrages me so much as to hear 
people say Paris is no place for young women; that it 
offers more pitfalls than any other city; that tempta- 
tions are multiplied there—all of which is ignorant non- 
sense. Zulh Taft and I were there quite alone, unchap- 
eroned; she was studying painting in a studio, while I 
worked away at sculpture; we ate about in restaurants, 
we were thrown with all sorts of people who were respon- 
sible onlv to themselves, we had no one watching us and 
no one to whom we were accountable, we went to life 
classes in the evening and tramped home from school 
late at night—and we felt as protected and safe from 
harm as though we had been living in the heart of a 
family in the Middle West. I always make a point of 
telling nervous mothers that they need have no more 
fear of their daughters going to Paris to study art than 
in letting them go to New York; as a matter of fact, 
of the two places, Paris is much more likely to prove 
the safer one—and surely much more friendly. I speak 
from experience. I know both. 

I realize now—though I didn’t when I was lying back 
comfortably in that steamer chair thinking of Paris— 
that Fate was particularly unkind when it took me away 
from that delightful life and carried me off to fight a 


[112] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


battle with New York. It was much too soon; I was 
too young, too inexperienced, entirely too unsophisti- 
cated. But of course I didn’t think so. I was sure work 
would be waiting for me in every studio and in every 
architect’s office; I hadn’t a single fear or doubt; my 
twenty-eight dollars would get me safely landed and 
installed in that home for working girls that I had been 
told about, and after that all I would have to do would 
be to go out and ask for a job. I had heard that suc- 
cess in New York meant success throughout the world; 
so naturally I thought of going nowhere else; that was 
to be my happy hunting ground. 

On the boat with me was a fellow student from Paris, 
Matilda Brownell; she had been studying painting there 
and was returning to the bosom of her family—a bosom 
that was so broad and hospitable and kind that, after we 
had landed and got our trunks passed, Mrs. Brownell 
took me aside and invited me to go with them to their 
country place on Long Island. 

“This isn’t the time to start in to work in New York,” 
she said. “It is entirely too hot and all of your friends 
will be out of town. You must come with us—for a 
month at least.” 

All my friends out of town! I didn’t know a living 
soul there; so that didn’t alter the appearance of the town 
very materially to me. It was a terrible temptation to 
go off with that delightful family that day. Nothing 
would have made me happier. Just looking on at the 
welcome Matilda’s family was giving her made me 


[113] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


realize how desperately alone I was. But it was not 
the moment for me to think of making charming visits. 
New York was waiting for me. I must plunge at once 
into the vortex and get under headway. 

I bade the Brownell family good-by, turned over 
my trunk to an expressman, with the address of the 
working girls’ home on 16th Street, crossed on a ferry- 
boat and boarded a street car that would take me near 
my destination. I arrived very hot and tired and 
climbed the steps of an unsympathetic-looking brown- 
stone house which I had no difficulty in identifying, as 
it bore a large placard announcing it to be the Margaret- 
Louisa Home. A servant let me in, looking at me rather 
suspiciously as she motioned me to a door on one side of 
the bare hall. I knocked at the door and, opening it, was 
at once confronted by a woman with a very severe face 
looking at me over a desk. There were no other chairs 
in the room except the one she was sitting in, so I stood 
before her, rather like a culprit at the bar. 

“What do you wish?” she asked in a chilly voice that 
was far from being a welcome to any sort of home. ; 

“T want a room, please—the simplest, cheapest one 
you have.” 

“Let me see your references.” 

“References! Why—I haven’t any. I thought this 
was a home for working girls and—” 

She cut me short with a snap, gave me a rather wither- 
ing glance and said in a now thoroughly icy voice: “We 


[114] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


don’t take strange women without personal introduc- 
tions.” 

Perhaps it was the heat and fatigue and just getting 
off a steamer that made my head whirl a bit at that mo- 
ment; at any rate, I don’t believe I have ever felt as be- 
wildered and abandoned as when that answer was hurled 
at me. 

“‘Then—what am I going to do?” I murmured. 

The woman stared at me with complete indifference, 
evidently not interested in my problem and not bothered 
with giving me a civil reply. 

“Can you tell me where to go? I ama stranger here. | 
I have no friends in town. Isn’t there some sort of a 
boarding house near here that I could go to?” 

She turned, still indifferent, to a drawer of the desk, 
took out a book and read out the address of a boarding 
house on 11th Street. I wrote it down quickly; and then 
thought of my trunk. 

“I’ve had my trunk sent here. Will you please tell 
the man to bring it to this address?” 

“T can’t take any responsibility about your trunk. The 
man might refuse to carry it to a changed address.”’ 

“But—lI’ve paid him for it. Perhaps—if you will let 
him leave it here until—” 

“We have no place for the trunks of persons not stop- 
ping in the house. If they let you have a room at that 
boarding house you’d better hurry back here before the 
expressman gets away.” 


[115] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


I rushed down to 11th Street, was shown a hall bed- 
room reeking with the scent of cooking cabbage—an in- 
credibly dirty place which cost seven dollars a week, food 
included—engaged it and ran back to the “home” for 
strange young women “wth references,” arriving there 
soon enough to find the expressman and get my trunk 
safely conveyed to the new address. 

By the time I had returned to my hall bedroom dinner 
was served and I had my first experience at a long table 
at which a very poor dinner was doled to poor people in 
about as grubby a way as I had ever seen. Later, I went 
out to get a breath of fresh air and found my way to 
Union Square, where I sat down on a solitary bench. 
Something was wrong, I knew that; and yet I didn’t 
know quite what. My return to my native land was 
anything but what I had expected it to be; the woman 
in charge of the Margaret-Louisa Home, the boarding- 
house keeper, even the expressman were all somehow so 
much less friendly than I had thought they would be; 
each one had been harsh and indifferent in an indi- 
vidual way and appeared to consider me an intruder 
on their time and occupation. I began to wonder what 
was the matter with me and to become unaccountably 
depressed ; then—such is the buoyancy of youth and hope 
—TI decided it was all due to the oppressive heat; it was 
enough to put any one out of humor. 

The next morning—unrefreshed from a stifling night 
—I got an early start, made my way to Saint-Gaudens’ 
studio, found it closed and the sculptor away at his 


[116] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


summer home in Vermont. The rest of the day I spent in 
calling at architects’ offices and asking if there were 
anything needed in the way of architectural decorations. 
On the whole, that second day was not so discouraging 
as the first; I was politely enough received and once or 
twice some interest was shown and some questions asked 
about my experience in Paris; but I returned to that 
miserable little hall bedroom with no special feeling of 
elation. Still, I was only spending a dollar a day; what 
was left of my twenty-eight dollars would carry me over 
three weeks; and I felt perfectly sure that by that time 
I would have landed more jobs than I could possibly 
accept. And, as a matter of fact, it was only four days 
before I had landed my first order. 

My first order! The first apparent job New York 
ever gave me—a lamp post to be erected on Union 
Square at the corner of Broadway. It sounded tremen- 
dously important and impressive. It isn’t there to-day, 
so no one need waste time trying to find it; as a 
matter of fact, it never was there; I might go even 
farther and say at once that there never was any pos- 
sibility or intention of its being there. It was just one 
of those imaginary things that Fate created in order 
that I might have the traditional experience through 
which every young woman working for her living ap- 
parently has to pass. 

The old fellow—he, too, followed tradition perfectly 
as the tempter is invariably depicted as senile—received 
me most cordially and took me into his private office, 


[117] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


where a large number of drawings of New York build- 
ings, his own work, decorated the walls. After he felt 
that I had been sufficiently impressed—which I really 
was—he pulled up a chair for me near his desk, sat 
down and then told me he was entirely at my disposal. 
It was only then that I realized that he had taken me 
for a client and not an applicant. When I explained, 
he didn’t appear in the least disappointed; indeed, he 
seemed all the more interested; and in a shorter time 
than it takes to tell he had grown enthusiastic at my ap- 
pearing at such an opportune moment; it was pure luck 
for him, he said, as he was just then looking for a sculp- 
tor to design a lamp post that was to be put up on the 
corner of Broadway and Union Square. Would I like to 
do it? My gratitude at that moment was so great that 
I felt perfectly sure that I had at last found my real 
friend in that terribly harsh city; I even began to think 
the old fellow was quite charming—which nothing but 
gratitude would ever have made me feel, for he was a 
rather awful-looking old German with blotched face 
and bulging eyes. 

You see, this story is perfectly in character with such 
incidents; the element of gratitude is always introduced; 
Bertha M. Clay and Ouida never failed to stress that 
sentiment as a palliating excuse for the poor girl’s down- 
fall. Well—when my gratitude was well aroused, it 
was given another tremendous push by being told that 
if I would undertake the work I would be paid thirty 
dollars in advance—in fact, that very day, at once. By 


[118] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


the time I left that office with thirty dollars in my purse 
my impressions of New York were completely changed; 
instead of being a heartless, cold place, it was every- 
thing that was warm-hearted. And this reminds me of a 
remark Julia Marlowe once made to me when I was com- 
plaining bitterly of the unfriendliness of New York: 
“It’s all very well to talk about it that way now. Just 
wait until you have made your success and you will think 
it the nicest place in the world.” 

I did think it quite the nicest place that day (Paris 
began to suffer by comparison) and I went on thinking 
it the nicest place for a whole week—a hectic week in 
which I found a studio on 17th Street just off Union 
Square, where my future masterpiece was to stand—I 
could actually see the sacred spot from my window. I 
took the studio at once and paid the first month’s rent 
in advance, fourteen dollars. It was called a furnished 
studio, though the furniture consisted only of a couch and 
four chairs; but at any rate it seemed like heaven after 
that awful boarding house and its more awful boarders. 
_ I began preliminary sketches for the famous lamp post, 
made several designs and when they were finished carried 
them to the office of my good angel. He was off for the 
week end, so I left my address and a note asking him to 
let me know when he returned so that I could submit 
the designs for his approval. The following day a note 
came from him saying he would call at my studio that 
afternoon to discuss the matter with me. He was show- 
ing himself even kinder than I had expected and once 


[119] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


more my gratitude grew apace; I rushed about trying to 
make the studio look presentable and tacking up the de- 
signs to show to the best advantage. 

He came late that afternoon, quite spick and span in 
summer attire, made some slight pretense of looking at 
my sketches and then lost no time in letting me know 
that they were not the cause of his very deep interest. 
There is no necessity of going into the details of that 
visit; its counterpart has been written about hundreds 
of times; the exact conversation might be found in a 
dozen novels. ‘The main point is that the interview 
ended abruptly with the visitor being shown the door 
and my locking it securely after him. The only question 
that should be answered—and I have no intention of 
avoiding it—is: What became of the thirty dollars paid 
in advance? J might as well confess right here that half 
of it went for the first month’s rent of the studio and the 
rest in buying canned baked beans. In novels the poor 
girl undergoes all sorts of heartrending privations to re- 
turn the money. That didn’t bother me in the least. 
I had gone to the expense of moving from the boarding 
house, buying drawing materials and spending several 
days in studying up designs—all of which quieted my 
conscience with regard to that thirty dollars. I felt I 
had earned it. 

This adventure deepened all my first impressions of 
the dreariness and harshness of New York—impressions 
that had plenty of time to become intensified as those 
hot, endless summer days dragged along without a single 


[120] 


¢ 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


friend appearing and without the smallest nibble at a 
job to break the monotony. It was another one of those 
definitely black periods which I hadn’t experienced 
since childhood. If there had been some sort of a stu- 
dents’ club, some meeting place where I should have had 
at least the comfort of exchanging a few words with 
another human being, it would have been much easier 
for me to get along; but there was no place of the kind 
' that I knew of. 

Those long hot days began with a frugal breakfast— 
milk and bread; then I would put the studio in order, 
removing all traces of the bedroom it was at night and 
turning it into a workshop. The rest of the morning 
I usually spent in drawing, though many mornings I 
felt I should profit more by looking at the work of 
others and tramped up to the Metropolitan Museum, 
where I spent hours in studying the sculpture and in 
painting—though I must say there is an extraordinary 
contrast between what that museum is to-day and what 
it was then. In those days the guards—more really 
policemen—apparently viewed every one who entered as 
under suspicion. Once, when I had taken a position 
near a column in order to get a view of the back of a 
statue, a guard rushed up to me and said no one was 
allowed to go behind the statues! At lunch time I 
returned to the studio and prepared the simple meal 
that never varied and that did not take any time or 
skill to prepare—a can of baked beans and a glass of 
milk. I had heard that there was a great deal of 


[iar] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


nourishment in beans; at any rate I found them the 
most filling thing I could buy for fifteen cents. In the 
afternoon I went about from one architect’s office to 
another’s—always with hope and always in vain; though 
I invariably succeeded in seeing the architect himself— 
due probably to my saying to the office boy that I 
wanted to see the head of the firm, mentioning his name 
and acting as if I were a client who was on the verge of 
ordering a Venetian palace built on Long Island. That 
first experience had taught me something. After an 
afternoon of rebuffs, footsore, hot and weary, I would 
usually—not every day but almost every other day— 
drop into a friendly little restaurant on Sixth Avenue 
where, for twenty-five cents, I could have dinner, my 
only square meal. And it was square, there is no doubt 
about that—all put on the table at once, from soup to 
ice cream, each little dab in its own bird-bath dish, the 
meat growing cold and the ice cream melting before I 
could finish the soup. On those evenings when I felt 
twenty-five cents was too much to spend on dinner—hav- 
ing already wasted ten cents on street cars that day—I 
would dine in my studio on the same old menu of baked 
beans and milk. But the hardest part of the day to get 
through was the long summer evening. Can anything 
be more utterly dismal than a summer evening in a city 
without a soul to speak to! If the air was unbearably 
stifling, I would often wander out to Union Square and 
sit there on a bench for an hour or two—which inva- 
riably increased my depression and loneliness. Those 


[ 122 | 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


other benches were filled with derelicts and loafers— 
the failures of life. I was too young then to feel any 
surge of sympathy towards them; they only filled me 
with disgust and an even greater desire for work—hard, 
satisfying work that would fill my empty life to over- 
flowing. When I could stand it no longer I would leave 
the bench, walk slowly back to the studio and creep into 
my couch bed without turning on the light. 

Day after day of this monotonous, cheerless existence 
had passed by when a letter from my sister in Chicago 
brought a little light. She was troubled and anxious 
at my being quite alone in New York and she begged 
me to come and make my home with her, reinforcing 
her invitation with a check for twenty-five dollars to 
pay for the railway ticket. I never really considered 
accepting her invitation, though I did turn it over in 
my mind a great deal, just to convince myself that I 
had no intention of being a sort of old-maid aunt to 
my sister’s children—that hopeless, drab, dull career 
that so many women let themselves drift into from 
lack of courage and energy to cut out on their own. 
However, I kept the check for twenty-five dollars. It 
swelled my funds in a most encouraging way. I now 
had almost fifty dollars in hand and only a few weeks 
more of summer left. Some friends have insisted that 
I could not possibly have got through those months on 
such a small amount; but I always successfully scouted 
their doubts by furnishing a list of my expenses, which 
ran as follows: 


[123 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Studio tent-by monthsy cos Ge eee $14.00 
Square meal every other day, for month.. 4.00 
Milk, :béans, ‘bread. pe ee 9.00 


There were literally no other expenses. I did my 
own washing. I never took a street car unless I was 
actually worn out. And it goes without saying that I 
never bought anything, least of all clothes. On the 
whole it was not the struggle to keep alive that I now 
look back on as being so dreary; it was the utter lone- 
liness of those days. I hadn’t a soul to say good- 
morning or good-night to; I might have been living on 
a desert island so far as companionship went; and the 
experience suggested to me something that I have never _ 
forgotten—that loneliness is the root of almost all evils sie ; 
it drives people into all sorts of strange actions; it de- 
velops weird quirks in character; it makes for despair 
and crime—and all quite naturally so, for God didn’t 
intend us to be lonely; He meant us all to be parts 
of a give and take machine that brings out the best 
in us. | 

I remember how warmly I welcomed a woman who 
came to my studio during that hopeless period. Even 
before she had spoken I felt like throwing my arms 
about her and thanking her—and God—for her ap- 
pearance. As a matter of fact, it was only a few 
minutes before we were sitting side by side on the 
couch, exchanging confidences. She was up against it, 
too, trying to make a living at journalism. An editor 


[124] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


had told her that he would like an article on women 
art students in Paris and in some way she had heard 
of me and found my address. Would I help her by 
telling her of my experiences in the studios of Paris? 
We spent a very happy day together; I even grew 
spendthrift and took her to my square meal restaurant 
and blew her off to a twenty-five-cent lunch; then we 
returned to the studio and I told her everything I 
knew. The next day she was back again with a pho- 
tographer from the magazine and took several photo- 
graphs of my studio, which I had great fun in putting 
into horrid disorder, adding a few bottles to give it a 
Bohemian touch and making it look as sordid as the 
typical studio of a poor art student is supposed to look. 
The photograph was to be called “A Paris Atelier” and 
it amused me to make it as squalid as I could. As a 
figure was needed to give life to the picture I consented 
to pose with my back to the camera. 

That woman went out of my life as quickly as she 
had come into it; I never saw her again; and I might 
never have remembered the incident if, several weeks 
later, I had not run across a copy of the Metropolitan 
Magazine and found an article in it signed “Janet 
Scudder,” a most exaggerated, utterly silly, vulgarly 
written article which made me blush with shame and 
fury. The illustration was labeled “Janet Scudder in 
her studio” instead of ‘‘A Paris Atelier’ as I had been 
told it would be called. The article made my friends 
even more furious than it did me; even MacMonnies 


[125] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


wrote me from Paris that I had better stick to sculpture 
—that writing was obviously not my field—but if I 
insisted on writing to try to write the truth. 

That second experience with a journalist—the first 
in Chicago had been hardly more successful—did me a 
great deal of harm in that it prejudiced me for a long 
time against a profession in which I now count some 
of my best friends. It had something to do with my 
playing a trick on a journalist many years later that I 
still regret deeply. It happened when I was living in 
my own house at Ville d’Avray, just at the edge of the 
St. Cloud wood. I had been asked by letter to give 
an interview to a woman who was representing a New 
York paper and in Paris to write about famous Ameri- 
can artists—her words, not mine. ‘The letter came at 
the time that I was busily at work on a fountain for 
Mr. Rockefeller’s estate on the Hudson and did not 
find me in a very expansive state of mind. However, 
I invited her to come out to see me; when she was 
announced I was just receiving a call from an old and 
intimate friend, Mabel Dodge. We both complained 
bitterly of the interruption and Mrs. Dodge suggested 
that I be relieved of talking about myself by letting her 
receive the journalist and assume the role of sculptor. 
In a moment of madness I accepted the suggestion and 
went down to meet the stranger, explaining that I was 
Miss Scudder’s secretary and had been sent to say that 
she would be received in the studio. I led the way to 
the studio and found, to my consternation, that Mrs. 


[126] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


Dodge had thrown on a sculptor’s apron, picked up the 
biggest tool she could find and was standing over a clay 
fountain in a most threatening attitude. I had a quick, 
alarming vision of the work of months being destroyed, 
and couldn’t resist rushing forward and grabbing the 
dangerous implement away from my substitute’s hands. 

“Oh, Miss Scudder?’ I exclaimed. ‘You promised 
me you would not work any more to-day. You know 
you are exhausted. Besides—this lady has come to talk 
to you about your life—your work—your plans for the 
future—your—” 

Mrs. Dodge turned imperious eyes upon the stranger. 
“My life!” she murmured. ‘Of what interest is that! 
My work is my life. Nothing else matters except work, 
work, work!” 

The journalist was thrilled by this time—and quite 
tightly so as Mrs. Dodge had assumed a pose and ex- 
pression that would have impressed any one—and got 
out pad and pencil to jot down notes. 

“But the world adores details, Miss Scudder,” she 
said. ‘Especially intimate details, Shall we begin 
with the place you were born in?” 

Mrs. Dodge gave me a troubled glance. ‘‘Where I 
was born,” she repeated, not having the slightest idea 
where my birthplace was. 

“Miss Scudder was born in Terre Haute, Indiana,” I 
answered for her. 

“When?” the journalist asked. 

Again Mrs. Dodge turned to me. 


[127] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


“Miss Scudder usually refers to the ’70’s as being the 
time of her birth,” I replied coolly. 

“The late or early ’/0’s?” On mature reflection I 
think that journalist was getting what she deserved. 

“It might be diplomatic to make it late,” I answered, 
now quite cold. 

“And her early education?” 

By this time Mrs. Dodge saw that she could not keep 
up the delusion any longer and picking up that dan- 
gerous implement again rushed out of the room with a 
far from reassuring gesture. 

I calmed the journalist with the assurance that Miss 
Scudder was in a most nervous state and that talking 
about her past usually excited her, that I knew the de- 
tails of her life perfectly and would tell her anything 
she wished to know. I took her into the drawing room, 
gave her tea and more information about myself than 
she could ever use. She went away perfectly satisfied 
and with all sorts of apologies for having intruded upon 
such a great artist; and the next day she sent the fake 
Miss Scudder some flowers and a note of sincere thanks. 

I wish this were the end of that story; but it isn’t. 
Two weeks later I went to a tea party and was just 
entering the room when the hostess called out to me: 
“Hello, Janet Scudder—come over here!” As I went 
towards her my roving eye came bang up against the 
frozen glance of that journalist. It was one of those 
moments in which the hair turns snow-white. I even 


[128 ] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


remember glancing in a mirror to see the process under 
way; and while doing so thrilled with an inspiration 
that would have been a credit to Napoleon. I swerved 
away from my hostess and went straight up to that 
journalist, extended my hand and said I was so glad to 
find her there as I had something most important to 
say to her. She met my onrush frigidly; and it took 
real force on my part to get her off to herself. Then 
I sat down beside her—TI think I even held her hand— 
and began explanations. 

“Don’t judge me too harshly,” I said. “I think I 
can make you understand why I did what you natu- 
rally think is unpardonable. For some time I have had 
the keenest desire to look at my sculpture with the im- 
personal eye of the bystander—I mean with the coid, 
critical eye of the person who hadn’t done it. And 
when you came to interview me, without ever having 
seen me, I felt the long awaited occasion had arrived. 
I hope you will forgive me and believe I am quite 
sincere. And do give me the pleasure of lunching with 
me to-morrow. There is a great deal more I want to 
tell you.” 

She accepted my explanation gracefully and came to 
lunch with me; and later on, when we had become 
friends, I told her the truth. It is a great relief to 
clear the decks as soon as possible—and perfect hon- 
esty is the only way of getting débris safely out of 
the way. 


[129] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


By the time Matilda Brownell and her family re- 
turned to town, I was facing a complete disappearance 
of funds; and during my first dinner with the family— 
only those who have lived for weeks and weeks on 
baked beans can realize what sitting at a table with 
flowers and candles and eating a delicious dinner per- 
fectly served meant to me—I made a full confession of 
my discouraging situation. Mr. Brownell immediately 
took an interest in my problem, told me he admired 
pluck more than anything in the world and said he was 
going to make it his special work to see that it was 
rewarded—a promise that he fulfilled with amazing 
rapidity. 

At that time he was secretary of the New York Bar 
Association, which had just decided to have a seal made. 
He mentioned me as an applicant for the work and in 
spite of objections against an unknown sculptor—and 
especially a woman—being given such an important 
work, he won out by guaranteeing that I could do the 
seal to the satisfaction of the association, saying he 
would refund the money if my work was unsuccessful. 

This was my first really serious commission—for 
which I was paid seven hundred and fifty dollars in four 
instalments; though I must say I still cling to that 
mythical lamp post as my first job. It had something 
much more romantic—sordidly romantic—about it than 
such an eminently respectable thing as a seal for a bar 
association. Without that experience I might have 
gone on boasting in a tiresome way that all the stories 


[130] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


of struggling women are without foundation—as they 
never happened to me. 

My first encounter with the committee that was to 
choose a design for the seal almost ended disastrously. 
They gave me the dimensions they had decided on and 
a photograph of a Minerva who held a spear in one 
hand, while the other, quite empty, was outstretched as 
if clutching for something. I tried to persuade the com- 
mittee that the subject was not very original. When 
asked to express my ideas, I suggested several ideas, but 
to no avail; they must have a Minerva; their minds 
were made up to that. 

“But surely not with that outstretched, clutching 
hand!” I protested. 

“What’s the matter with that hand?” they demanded. 

“Somehow it’s unpleasantly suggestive for a lawyers’ 
association. It looks as if she were reaching out fran- 
tically for her fee and backing up her demands with a 
spear.” 

The committee laughed and compromised, allowing 
me to model a small victory in the empty hand—this 
no doubt symbolic that the fee had been paid; and the 
next day I left that studio on 17th Street and moved 
into a real one farther uptown, having received the first 
instalment on the work for the seal and feeling like 
nothing less than a millionaire with one hundred and 
eighty-seven dollars and fifty cents in my pocket. 

Now the goose began to hang high, very high indeed; 
I had a real job, a real studio and some friends to spend 


[131] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


the evenings with occasionally. I began to go about to 
studios, now the sculptors were returning to town, and 
made my first visit to Saint-Gaudens, carrying along, 
you may be sure, those six letters of introduction Mac- 
Monnies had given me. 

I was immensely impressed the first time I saw Saint- 
Gaudens; his appearance fitted in so perfectly with his 
beautiful and distinguished name; I felt at once that 
he had lived up to it in both looks and manner. 
Nothing could possibly give a better description of his 
work than his name. It is exactly the same with 
Michael Angelo, Donatello, Benvenuto Cellini, Ver- 
rocchio, Ghiberti—each one of these names repeats the 
character of the work of the artist. No man named 
Augustus Saint-Gaudens could have failed to make an 
impression on his epoch. The mere sound of the name 
is the best portrait of the man that could be found. 
Just repeat it over and over and you will have his image 
before you: a high forehead topped with a mass of 
tawny brown hair, deep-set eyes, a large finely drawn 
nose, a reddish pointed beard and a fine, patriarchal 
manner accompanied by carefully chosen words. 

His welcome was cordial, but he became so interested 
in those six letters from MacMonnies that he forgot all 
about me—letters which MacMonnies had told me were 
written in varying vein so that one of them should fit 
the mood in which Saint-Gaudens happened to be at the 
time he read it. Both of these men were very clever 
and amusing letter writers and often, in the form of 


[132] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


letters of introduction for young sculptors who wanted 
to meet Saint-Gaudens in New York or MacMonnies in 
Paris, they would write each other long communica- 
tions; and [ have been told that sometimes, on the same 
boat with the aspiring young sculptor who carried the 
letter of introduction next his heart, went a second 
letter in the mail bag which contained a complete re- 
traction of all the laudatory phrases in the first one. 
Whether or not this happened in my case, I don’t know; 
though I’m inclined to think, judging from Saint- 
Gaudens’ indifference to me, that it may have. How- 
ever, he did express himself as glad to welcome me to 
New York, hoped I would have a pleasant sojourn there, 
and then told me of his reasons for wishing to leave it 
himself; he was utterly weary of the glittering blue 
skies of New York and the roar of the elevated trains; 
he felt the call to cross the seas; he must get back to 
the calm of Paris and the gray skies of France; at that 
moment—he illustrated his words with broad gestures 
of his long, slender hands—he was just dovetailing his 
work so that everything might be finished and he could 
get away. 

He showed me the monument for the Boston Com- 
mon on which he was then working—the one of Shaw 
on horseback leading a regiment of colored soldiers 
over whom floated an angel—a work of singular 
beauty. 

I always think of the amusing contrast between that 
first visit to Saint-Gaudens in New York and one several 


[133] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


years later in Paris, when he invited me to come to see 
his equestrian statue of Sherman which now stands op- 
posite the Plaza Hotel at the entrance to Central Park. 
As I was leaving I said: 

“Are you much happier in Paris than you were in 
New York?” 

“Oh, no,” he replied. ‘“These gray skies are killing 
me and the mists of Paris are ruining my health. I 
must get back to those lovely blue skies of New York.” 

I don’t think the skies had really anything to do with 
Saint-Gaudens’ discomfort; it was more likely caused by 
the very sumptuous and very red apartment in which 
he was living. Everything in it seemed to be red, at 
least everything that wasn’t gilt—one of those dreadful 
furnished affairs without comforts or charm. Then, 
also, he had waited too long to pull up stakes; his place 
in America was too well padded and secure for him to 
be happy anywhere else. 

I had expected him to take some personal interest in 
me that first year in New York, as I was his pupil’s 
pupil; but his interest never went further than words— 
except in one case, which had to do with the alphabet 
which he and Stanford White had evolved for the in- 
scriptions on monuments. The moment I saw the let- 
tering on the Shaw monument, I realized that great 
style had been achieved in the inscription; the sheer 
beauty of the letters caught the eye before the words 
were read—an unusual thing, as most monuments carry 
the inscription as a sort of enforced obligation. Saint- 


[134] 


q40X man “javbog “gq “py sojoyd ‘YIOK MIN J1Y FO Winasnyy ueWlOdoNIPAy 


ur 9u0 puke ‘ouIeyy ‘IoqIey Jeg ‘(ploqys1y 
‘stiegd ‘winhasnyy Sinoquiaxny Aq ySnog auuy) Siapunesg “sIj, JO 938389 UO sug 


HSId HLIM AOT NIVLINQOW DOW 


FROG FOUNTAIN 


This is the fountain mentioned as being shown in studio of Bay Emmett 
(Mrs. Rand). Bought by Stanford White for the estate of James Breese. 
Also one bought by Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 


WALL FOUNTAIN 


On Jennings estate, Long Island 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


Gaudens had made the inscription an important part of 
the whole design, no doubt inspired by the study of 
the beautiful and effective use of words on old Roman 
tombs and pedestals. I gazed at those letters a long 
time, until I thought I had discovered what it was that 
gave them their cachet—the large round O’s and the 
very stylish, somewhat archaic M’s. They made such 
an impression on me that, after I left the studio, I went 
straight down to that very beautiful memorial to Far- 
ragut in Madison Square and there studied the effect 
of the same letters. When I told Saint-Gaudens that 
I was anxious to get the same style into my letters on 
the seal for the Bar Association, he said he would be 
delighted to give me the model and that same day sent 
me a small package which contained the entire alphabet, 
each letter cut out separately. This was a rare and use- 
ful gift which has ever since been invaluable to me; 
and it was a particular satisfaction to use this style of 
lettering when J, with seven or eight sculptors who had 
been associated with Stanford White in his work in 
New York, was invited to contribute to the work on his 
memorial—those bronze gates erected for the Univer- 
sity of New York. I chose for my part of the work 
the inscription. | 

After my first visit with Saint-Gaudens I called at 
Daniel Chester French’s studio, where I found out, as 
I had at Saint-Gaudens’, that no real help was going 
to be given to a struggling young sculptor who was 
very proud of calling herself the pupil of MacMonnies. 


[135] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


I must say that I was somewhat surprised at the ex- 
tremely polite but excessively frigid reception that I 
received from most of those studios. If I had counted 
on a helping hand from any of them I very probably 
would have starved to death—as a young woman at 
that time actually did. After her death it was found 
out that she possessed considerable talent but, receiving 
no encouragement and being very poor, had lived for a 
whole year on ten cents a day. The National Sculp- 
ture Society turned out in full force at her funeral and 
every one was terribly shocked to learn the facts of her 
struggle and why she had died—when it was too late 
to do any good. This incident made a very bitter im- 
pression on me—I came very near to having the same 
experience myself. Conditions are indeed very hard in 
America for young sculptors, but it is not a difficult 
problem to overcome, if only successful sculptors would 
get together and agree to divide up the work that comes 
to them in impossible quantities. There is an enormous 
amount of sculpture commissions given out every year, 
not only in New York, but all over the country; and 
quite naturally these commissions are given to sculptors 
who have already made their names. It is a well-known 
fact that when one of our most famous sculptors died 
a few years ago he left a list of commissions that would 
have taken him several lifetimes to finish; and yet it 
never occurred to him to turn over some of this work 
to his own brother, who was doing distinguished but 
unsuccessful work and living in poverty and discourage- 


[136] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


ment. No one who has made a success has any right 
to be selfish about passing on what he hasn’t the time 
to do himself. If we don’t help others towards the 
success we have achieved we have no right to success 
ourselves. | 
When the Bar Association seal was finished, the 
original model cast in bronze and placed on the wall 
behind the secretary’s desk, a reduction of the seal made 
and the final payment given me, I felt very much like 
the man who has toiled up to the top of a very high 
mountain and stops, turns round and looks down on the 
incredible distance he has come. Very likely it was this 
feeling of looking down that carried me into renting a 
studio in the tower of Carnegie Hall, which had just 
then been completed. At first it was rather wonderful 
living in that tower and looking down on New York 
instead of looking up at it. J often amused myself 
watching the long stream of human ants coming out of 
the concert hall below and making their way along the 
street, all filled up with music and rushing home to fill 
up with food. I felt tremendously superior, living up 
there so high, though I’m not sure that it is a good 
thing for artists to live in towers and to feel superior. 
My best work has never been done far from the earth, 
and for that reason I find myself much preferring a 
ground floor studio for sculpture. Perhaps the bird’s- 
eye view of people and streets is not conducive to the 
pursuit of the fine arts. At any rate, my studio in that 
tower was not a success—in spite of the fact that I was 


[137] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


very proud of being able to pay forty dollars a month 
for it. The large building beneath me, filled with 
pianists and singers and dancers, hundreds of voices, 
thousands of pianos, seemed to disconnect me definitely 
from the earth and sculpture. On the floor just under 
me a dancer who has since become famous was begin- 
ning her first studies. ‘The music chosen to inspire her 
steps and poses was Nevin’s “Narcissus.” It was played 
for weeks and weeks, all night, all day, over and over 
again. I can never hear that music now without show- 
ing some symptoms of hysteria. But the way Isadora 
Duncan worked should be a lesson to every one. No 
wonder she had a great success; no one with such con- 
stant application to an idea could possibly have failed, 

A few odd jobs began to come my way, principally 
the architectural ornament. A rising young architect 
gave me some ornamental work to do for a building he 
was putting up on East 65th Street. This work is still 
in existence and so corroborates my story, which the 
mythical lamp post never did. The first design was a 
ram’s head, which turned out successfully and was re- 
produced several times in stone under the eaves of the 
building. The second piece of work, a plinth with 
capital, was not so fortunate, because the design was 
turned over to an assistant who was delegated to see 
that my work was architecturally correct. This assist- 
ant’s special job was most enlightening to me; it taught 
me a great deal about the necessity of understanding the 
psychology of one’s clients. She—yes, the assistant in 


[138] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


this case was a woman—made a specialty of closets; in 
a way she was the greatest expert on closets the world 
has ever known; and as her employer was devoting most 
of his time to building residences, she became an invalu- 
able help to him. Often when his women clients showed 
signs of becoming a bit troublesome about the designs of 
their houses, the architect would turn them over to his 
assistant to discuss some arrangement of closets and 
immediately everything else would be forgotten and he 
would be left undisturbed to go on with his original 
scheme for the house. 

But the closet expert and J didn’t hit it off so well as 
those ladies whose interests center about closets. When 
I showed her my clay model for the plinth, she looked 
at it through obviously unsympathetic eyes and said it 
was out of plumb. 

“All right,’ I said. “Which way does it lean?” 

“You will have to find that out for yourself. I 
haven’t the time to do your plumbing for you.” 

“But here is a plumb line. Won’t you just plumb 
the plinth? You will then see that it is perfectly 
upright.” 

“No—I won’t. I know that plinth is out of plumb. 
It isn’t necessary for me to use a plumb line to see that. 
If you don’t feel it is not straight you will never be 
able to get it right.” 

I tried desperately to get out of the room calmly— 
and failed. “I know what’s the matter with my 
plinth,” I said at the door. 


[139] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


“What?” demanded the closet expert. 

“‘There’s no place in it for you to put a closet!” 

And with that thrust I gave up the job and left the 
office. 3 | 

Always I have felt, even during those first hard days 
of struggle, that an artist’s most precious possession is 
his independence of spirit. If he begins to bow down 
to people and their tastes and peculiarities he is lost— 
so far as ever doing really good work goes. He may 
make a good living out of such methods, but he will 
never be a fine artist. I couldn’t help feeling that I 
had to take a stand with that imperious closet expert; 
just as I had to take a stand with an equally imperious 
mother a few weeks later—though in each case I lost a 
perfectly good job. 

The imperious mother gave me an order to do por- 
trait medallions of her two children. She belonged to 
the type of the newly rich and engaged artists as she 
engaged cooks. If the artist’s work did not please her, 
she discharged him just as she would discharge a cook 
who burned an omelette. I was delighted to get this 
order—it had come to me through the success of the 
Bar Association seal and I had become very much inter- 
ested in low-relief portraits. I was very ambitious, and 
even thought, during those days, of making this my 
special field and becoming a great medalist. ‘There is 
no telling how far I might have gone in that direction 
if my first order for this sort of work had not ended 
so disastrously. 


[140] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


The lady informed me, through her secretary, that it 
would be impossible for the children to be brought to 
my studio and that, in order to do the work, I would 
have to come to her country place. I agreed to this 
readily enough and went off to the country, where I was 
met at the station by a large automobile and finally de- 
posited in the vast hall of my client’s country house 
and left to wait patiently, as manicurists, and coiffeurs 
and masseuses are forced to do. ‘The lady finally ap- 
peared, nodded casually and, after being reminded of 
my mission, said: 

“Oh, yes—you’re the person who is going to do the 
portraits of the children! You will find them playing 
in the sand. Of course they can’t be brought into the 
house now. You will have to work with them out-of- 
doors. And I shall have to ask you to be very careful 
not to interrupt their games.” 

I went down to the sand pile and began to study the 
children with the success you can easily imagine when 
you realize that they were hopping about all the time 
from one sand pile to another; and to add to my dis- 
comfort the wind was blowing a tremendous gale. I 
worked until lunch time, had lunch with the family 
and left that afternoon with the promise, however, ex- 
tracted with much difficulty from the Louis Quatorze 
mother, that the next sitting should be arranged inside 
the house. The next time, though I went out by ap- 
pointment, no automobile met me at the station and as 
there was no vehicle to carry me the five miles to the 


[141] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


house, I sat in the station until the train passed that 
would carry me back to New York. From town, I 
wrote the lady that, if she wished me to do the por- 
traits of her children, she would have to send them to 
my studio. She finally consented to this and sent 
me one of her charming little boys, always carefully 
watched over by an English governess, for several sit- 
tings; in this way I managed to pull off a fairly good 
piece of portraiture which I had cast in plaster. 

Before this work was completed, another order had 
come in for two medallion portraits of people living in 
Washington. This necessitated going to the Capital, 
where I carried with me the bas-relief of the little boy 
—which the mother had not yet seen. I was so pleased 
with it that I thought it would be a good recommenda- 
tion to have with me; a very wise decision, too, as a 
reporter called on me soon after my arrival in Wash- 
ington, saw the portrait of the boy and wrote an article 
about it. Thinking this would please the difficult 
mother, I cut out the article and mailed it to her, re- 
ceiving in return a most scorching letter in which she 
said I had no right to have the medallion of her child 
cast, much less shown, before she had approved of it. 

I couldn’t resist taking the same stand with her that 
I had taken with that closet expert. I never let the 
mother see the medallion of her little boy and I never 
let her have it. It was a tremendous satisfaction to 
discharge her before she discharged me. And I learned 
something from the experience that has been most use- 


[142] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


ful to me in avoiding similar difficulties. From that 
day I did not accept a commission to do a portrait 
medallion without a written contract that stipulated the 
conditions of payment, the number of sittings in my 
studio and, above everything else, that no criticism 
would be permitted while the work was in progress. I 
still think—though I have long since given up doing 
portraits—that such contracts make the only possible 
system by which artist and client can work success- 
fully together over portraits. Once the client makes 
up his mind to let the artist work independently, he is 
relieved of all responsibility and can sit quietly and 
patiently, giving himself entirely into the hands of the 
artist and not being bothered with the struggle that 
goes on during the process of finding the likeness. Of 
course, if he thinks he can do the work better than the 
artist—and that his family can make invaluable sug- 
gestions—he ought to do the modeling himself and not 
employ a sculptor. To portray nature, a search that 
should be long and serious and which is often filled 
with discouragement, the artist should be left entirely 
free to go his own way. My form of contract stated _ 
all my conditions very fully, and after it was read and 
signed I usually had very pleasant relations with my 
sitters. 

By the time I was well into the second year, my first 
attack on New York—there were others!—had been 
carried through with a certain amount of success; at 
least I had squeezed a living out of the huge city. 


[143] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Portrait medallions and architectural ornament work— 
especially one well-paid commission for sculptural deco- 
rations for an enormous business building on Beaver 
Street—had increased my earnings considerably. But 
after the first thrill of finding that I could support 
myself, I began to realize that making a living was 
not everything; and, most of all, I had no intention of 
wasting my life doing odd jobs and merely looking on 
while well-known sculptors got all the commissions for 
important work. Wire-pulling was always impossible 
for me; I couldn’t help feeling a very deep contempt 
for it; it took all the dignity and sincerity out of one’s 
work and out of one’s life. It was possible for an 
artist to be independent, I kept repeating to myself; 
but of course to be independent one had to make a 
name; that would take time; and the question was: 
Could I afford to take the time? I decided in the 
affirmative. | 

I was in the midst of considering a proposed memo- 
rial that had been brought to me by Mr. Brownell—a 
portrait medallion with inscription for the founder of 
some small college in New York State. There was no 
photograph of the gentleman in existence and as he had 
died many years before, there was no clue to work on 
except the tradition that he was supposed to resemble 
Benjamin Franklin. I think it must have been the name 
of Franklin and the recollection of his little house in 
Passy that I had once seen that sent my thoughts racing 
back to Paris. 

[144] 


STRUGGLING WITH NEW YORK 


“Do you think I might do this memorial in Paris?” 
I asked Mr. Brownell. 

“I see no objection,” he replied. “But why Paris?” 

“Because I’ve saved up enough money to return there 
now. I can live in Paris much cheaper than in New 
York and I can continue my studies, which I left rather 
abruptly.” 

Mr. Brownell consented to the memorial being done 
in Paris and also decided to send his daughter back to 
continue her studies in painting. He asked me to dine 
with the family that evening and we were in the midst 
of discussing plans, all of us very happy and excited, 
when a servant came into the drawing-room and an- 
nounced in a frightened voice that the French femme 
de chambre was having a fit. Mrs. Brownell rushed to 
the rescue and, after calming the woman to some ex- 
tent, demanded the cause of her trouble, which was 
due, it seems, to hearing talk about going to Paris while 
she had to remain in New York. The thought was 
unbearable to her and had brought on hysterics. Mr. 
Brownell, hearing the groans and wails of the home- 
sick woman—and always sympathetic and kind—quieted 
her completely by telling her he would send her along 
as maid to his daughter and myself; and so Parot, 
wreathed in smiles, pulled herself together and began 
instant preparations for our departure. 

When I was once more on a boat, steaming down the 
harbor and watching New York rise out of the dusk 


[145] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


with its millions of electric lights, I nodded at it, 
smiled and waved my hand. 

“On the whole,” I said to it, “you haven’t been so 
bad to me—not nearly so bad as you have been to lots 
of others, though you did try pretty hard to get the best 
of me. But you haven’t given me yet what I want. 
You will though. Just wait and see!” 

Matilda Brownell found me leaning on the rail, 
mumbling to myself. 

“What's the matter?’ she asked. ‘Already regret- 
ting leaving New York?’ 

“I was just telling it’—with a wave of the hand 
towards the now fading city—‘“that it has something I 
want—something that I’m going to make it give me.” 


[146] 


V 
FINDING MYSELF 


Tue next three years of my life were very happy ones, 
spent most of the time in one place, a little house on 
the Boulevard Raspail at the corner of the Rue Bois- 
sonade, where Matilda Brownell and I and the always 
indispensable and efficient Parot set up housekeeping. 
It was a nice little house, two stories, with a most cor- 
rect, even demure facade of the XVIII Century, and 
over the door was a head of Venus. The house next 
door, exactly like ours, was decorated in more sedate 
manner, with the bust of Homer. 

After we had signed the lease—a ridiculously small 
amount compared with prices to-day—-we were very 
much delayed in getting established by my desire to 
buy a dog at once. I had always said that if I ever 
had a house of my own the first thing I would have 
would be a dog; and nothing could persuade me from 
finding that dog immediately. I dragged Matilda about 
with me for days to all those fascinating and delightful 
dog shops of Paris, when of course we ought to have 
been haunting second-hand furniture places and finding 
bargains in beds and chairs and tables. In the end the 
dog was found, a Scotch terrier that we called Singe, 
because he looked rather like a monkey; and this ques- 


[147] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


tion being got out of the way—or more correctly speak- 
ing put in the way—we went ahead with the house. 
The entire furnishings hardly came to two hundred 
dollars; though later on we began to pick up other 
things, an old table or desk, a rare bit here and there, 
and gradually some really beautiful old chairs replaced 
the simple wicker ones we had begun with until, in the 
end, our little house grew quite charming. 

I have always clung to those early pieces of furni- 
ture; they have become a part of me, and I have never 
failed to carry them with me to all the different houses 
and apartments I have lived in since J bought them. 
There is a certain square table, Louis XV, with a beau- 
tiful line in its legs and little round corners to the top, 
that I should just as soon think of parting with as with - 
my dog. This table has been my constant companion 
for twenty years and more. When Matilda returned 
to New York, taking her share of the furniture with 
her, I am sure that I should never have survived the 
blow if she had claimed that table. Even now, when 
she comes to see me in Paris and looks at the precious 
object, I immediately begin to grow nervous. It was 
the first antique we bought and as we bought it together 
she naturally must feel a share of ownership in it. 

/ Furniture, real furniture, seems to me to be a part 
/ of one’s personality and one’s life. I always marvel at 
\those people who go into a shop, any shop, and buy 
\sets of furniture. One should accumulate one’s furni- 
ture as one accumulates one’s wrinkles. Places do not 


[148] 


FINDING MYSELF 


hold me so much; but furniture, my furniture, goes 
traveling about with me on all occasions. I know I 
couldn’t write a line—at least not a good one—unless 
I was sitting at my own desk; and so far as eating a 
meal in my own house on a new and unfamiliar table, 
nothing could possibly be more unsympathetic. 

We celebrated the first evening in our little Paris 
home with more color than we had intended, because 
of Parot’s exuberance at finding herself once more in 
her native city. When we went down to the dining- 
room there were no signs of dinner; and when we pene- 
trated to the kitchen there were still fewer evidences 
of anything to eat. However, we did find Parot, 
overstimulated with red wine, vigorously painting the 
kitchen walls with a mixture of olive oil and vinegar 
and mustard. I suppose she thought she was serving 
the millions of her Gallic brethren with a salad dressing 
that had been accumulating in strength and quantity 
during all those wasted years in New York. Our house- 
warming became entirely too hot for us and we de- 
parted to a near-by restaurant, leaving Parot to work 
off her enthusiasm on the kitchen walls. 

The life we led in that little house would have been 
a great comfort to those nervous mothers who think, 
when their daughters have gone to Paris to study art, 
that they have gone straight to the devil. It might 
almost have been called humdrum—made up, as it was, 
entirely of routine and hard work. Matilda went off 
in the morning and spent the day painting and I re- 


[149] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


mainéd in the studio on the ground floor; in the eve- 
nings after dinner we went to Collarossi’s Academy and 


drew from life for three hours; then back again to gather | 


up energy for the next day. I have always been very 
thankful for the routine of those three years; and I 
never would have had it if it had not been for Matilda 
Brownell. She had been brought up in the atmosphere 
of a New York family that believed in doing certain 
things at certain hours, having certain food on certain 
days and spending Sundays in a way which the most 
strenuous Puritan would have approved of. Day after 
day, week after week, went by, lived through with a 
clocklike regularity, with long solid hours of work and 
no interruptions. On Sundays, we invariably began the 
day with going to church, that lovely old church near 


the Market, St. Eustache, where we killed two birds ~ 


with one stone by witnessing a very picturesque service 
and listening to a sermon in French which did the double 
duty of giving us some very good advice and teaching 
our ears to become accustomed to the sound of perfect 
French. The music was also an inspiration, especially 
the recessionals, which were played by a famous organist 
who usually chose Beethoven or Bach fugues. After 
church we would spend an hour or two at the Louvre, 
storing up inspiration from the wonderful paintings and 
superb sculpture. Then came lunch in one of our fa- 
vorite restaurants in the Palais Royal—for Sunday 
was a day on which it was necessary to give Parot com- 
plete liberty to work off Latin temperament, in order 


[150] 


IPG) Aly fs). Beare pe Vere 
FIGHTING BOYS 


At Art Institute, Chicago, Illinois. 


Photo A. B. Bogart, New York 
YOUNG DIANA | 


This, with a tall base of four greyhounds, on estate of Harold Pratt, 
Glen Cove, Long Island. Also one loaned to Metropolitan Museum 
of Art, New York. 


~s' 


FINDING MYSELF 


to regain efficient calm for the coming week. During 
the afternoon, if the weather were fine, we would take 
a boat down the Seine, get off at St. Cloud and walk 
through the forest until we were forced to leave by the 
insistent beating of the drum which meant the closing 
hour had come. And the day ended with dinner at a 
little cocher restaurant just outside the gates—after 
which we took the boat back home. 

I am sure this program does not sound as if it were 
dangerous to either health or morals; and I don’t think 
ours was a unique routine. There were lots of young 
American students in Paris at that time leading just as 
frugal and sane lives. Of course there were exceptions; 
there always are; and unfortunately they are the cases 
that are most heard about. 

I have given this slight outline of those three years 
as I consider them almost the most important in my 
career as an artist. It was during that time that I found 
myself. Every artist, sooner or later, has to go through 
a period of finding himself; he has to do it before any 
one else can find him; and the sooner this period comes 
the better, as it then furnishes a long time in which to 
do the work he has decided he can do best—the sort 
that will express him, his personality, his individuality 
and give him a small or great right to become immortal. 
This period has nothing to do with what might be 
called learning the technique of the profession; that 
should belong to the past, got through with, forgotten; 
of course it is necessary—you can’t do anything without 


[151] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


it; but once learned it must become second nature and, 
in a way, quite unconscious. I once asked MacMon- 
nies what he thought about a student of sculpture 
studying anatomy. ‘Of course it’s absolutely neces- 
sary,” he said. “Every sculptor must study anatomy 
and then—forget it.” It has always seemed to me very 
much like the rules of grammar; we learn them during 
our early school days and later they go entirely out of 
our heads and the grammar has become more or less an 
instinct. Grammar is in a way the skeleton. Once 
you learn the skeleton you don’t think any more about 
it; and yet, if you didn’t know all about the skeleton, 
you couldn’t possibly do a figure that would be well 
constructed. A three months’ course in anatomy at the 
beginning of every sculptor’s peer saves him endless 
time later on. 

The Academy of Art in Cincinnati, the work at the 
World’s Fair in Chicago, my year with MacMonnies in 
Paris and my two years of struggle in New York were 
all steps in the process of learning to be a sculptor. 
By the time I arrived in Paris for the second time I had 
reached the point where I was beginning to wonder 
what kind of sculpture I was going to do. I knew I 
could make a living; that was most satisfactorily dem- 
onstrated by having made enough money to return to 
Paris and not be worried for a long time about expenses. 
But beyond that—what could I do? Did I have a flair 
for any special branch of sculpture? Did I have ideas 
of making literature of sculpture, as a woman I knew 


[152] 


FINDING MYSELF 


did—every piece of her work was so cluttered up with 
symbolism that she had very little strength left, after 
she had composed her message to the world, to do the 
modeling? Did I believe that sculpture should teach 
lessons as those paintings that are supposed to tell 
stories do? Did I feel that art should be grave or gay 
—pagan or Christian—spiritual or sensual? But why 
go on with the endless questions that faced me! I 
didn’t know at all what I wanted to do—and it took 
me three whole years to find out. 

I did know, though, some of the things I did not 
want to do—and at the head of this list came eques- 
trian statues; and this, too, in spite of a fleeting ambi- 
tion while in Cincinnati to make this my life work. I 
think it was that winter in Washington, while I was 
doing two portrait medallions, when I realized that 
equestrian statues could come very near to ruining a 
beautiful city. It seems quite impossible to avoid run- 
ning bang into one of these monster-pieces everywhere 
you turn in Washington. Thank Heaven I resisted 
adding to the number! And I think I deserve credit 
for being brave enough to refuse to do a portrait statue 
at a time when I was sadly in need of a commis- 
sion. 

While in Washington a distinguished old senator 
asked me how I would like to do a portrait statue of 
Longfellow to be put up in the Capitol. Of course I 
thrilled at the idea of having a work of mine, an im- 
portant work, in so conspicuous a place; then came a 


[153] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


dampening of all enthusiasm as I thought of the hun- 
dreds of stuffy old bronze gentlemen in Prince Alberts 
and generals’ uniforms already standing in every square 
of the city. 

“It would be a crime to put up another portrait 
statue in Washington!” I exclaimed impulsively. 

“What do you mean?” asked the senator. “We have 
the money and the site and it is now only a question 
of finding the sculptor.” 

I tried to explain my point of view. I asked the 
senator if he had ever seen the plan for the city which 
had been made over a century ago by a Frenchman, 
Major L’Enfant—a plan made at George Washington’s 
special request. I grew enthusiastic over what our 
capital would be if that plan were finished with its 
suggested esplanades and magnificent vistas. 1 went 
further and said that the completing of that plan 
would furnish a chance to assemble all the bronze 
equestrian statues and place them on either side of the 
great avenue that would lead from the Capitol to the 
Monument, thus creating a historic pageant. I cited 
the circle of queens that surrounds the fountains in the 
Luxembourg gardens as an example. Then I ended by 
asking the senator if the committee wouldn’t consider 
a fountain to Longfellow’s memory, surrounded by 
flowers and plants and marble benches, a place where 


people might come at their leisure for a breathing spell, 


for a moment of rest—all this instead of a bronze figure 
that one person in a thousand might accidentally glance 


[154] 


FINDING MYSELF 


at, shudder and hurry away from as fast as possible. 

“I'd love to do a memorial garden for Longfellow!” 
I ended with a glow of enthusiasm. 

The senator looked at me through slightly offended 
and surely very critical eyes. “You've got entirely off 
the track, young lady! What we want is the statue of 
the MAN.” 

By this time I was getting tired of not having even 
my point of view admitted and became impatient. 

“Well—I won’t do it!” I burst out. “I won’t add 
to this obsession of male egotism that is ruining every 
city in the United States with rows of hideous statues 
of men—men—men—each one uglier than the other— 
standing, sitting, riding horseback—every one of them 
pompously convinced that he is decorating the land- 
scape!’ ‘Then, seeing a mild alarm in the old senator’s 
eyes, I added more calmly: “Of course there are many 
good portrait statues. The point I am trying to make 
is that too much of anything is ruinous; and Wash- 
ington already has too many portrait monuments.” 

The senator moved away to what he considered a 
safe distance, fully convinced by this time that he had 
encountered a particularly dangerous species of suffra- 
gette. Years later, when I was sitting beside him at 
dinner, he turned to me with a delightful twinkle in his 
eyes and said: 

“If I’m not very much mistaken, you are the young 
lady who was once so violent about statues of men.” 

I nodded and met his smile. “I still am,” I answered. 


[155] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


“Tve never yet done a bronze figure of a man in a 
Prince Albert—and I hope to heaven I never will.” 

With this decision taken early in my career, I looked 
about and thought a great deal of what I should make 
my particular kind of sculpture. Of course, while doing 
this thinking and searching, I had to go ahead with the 
commissions I had brought away from New York with 
me; and for a long time my work consisted entirely of 
doing monuments for the dead. Sometimes I would 
become rather alarmed over this; it was so tremendously 
depressing; I hated the idea of devoting all my time to 
those who had passed away. But the experience left 
me with a very deep conviction that the dead are always 
with us. Surely they were continuously with me during 
those days; and in a most comforting way, too, for they 
kept me from worrying about expenses; without them, 
I might never have had those quiet years in which to 
find myself. 

As soon as we were settled in our little house, I 
began the memorial of the old gentleman who had 
founded a college and who was supposed to have looked 
like Benjamin Franklin. The work went along very 
well until I reached the inscription. That held me up 
for a long time, not so much on account of the modeling 
of the letters—I still had Saint-Gaudens’ alphabet with 
me—but more because I was somewhat bewildered by 
the statement regarding the gentleman’s career. It 
began: “Born 1840. Began immediately to study 
Latin.” That bothered me very much. I demurred 


[156] 


FINDING MYSELF 


over putting such a sweeping statement in bronze. I 
felt sure it would create surprise—unless the old gen- 
tleman had shown himself at birth to be so extraordi- 
nary that nothing he might have done would have been 
questioned. Still—no one was living to vouch for his 
precocity. The difficulty was solved by writing to 
America and receiving permission to leave out the 
“immediately” and let the age at which he began to 
study Latin remain shrouded in the past. 

Two other monuments for the dead came my way 
before this first one had been finished—both for Wood- 
lawn Cemetery. Even the very good sums accompany- 
ing these commissions did not entirely relieve my mind 
of a certain ominous suggestion; and just in order to 
clear the atmosphere of too much mournfulness I took 
a little excursion into something livelier and did an 
allegorical figure, entitled “Music,” for the Paris Expo- 
sition that was soon to open. Though this had no suc- 
cess—due in great measure, I have always thought, to 
the fact that my Italian model, after posing for me for 
several weeks, went off to Italy for a short visit and 
returned, completely changed by a steady diet of maca- 
roni, with an entirely different figure—it achieved its 
purpose and sent me back to the designing of my monu- 
ments for the dead with much lighter rhythm. 

MacMonnies was always of great assistance to me 
during those days. Though [ still called myself his 
pupil—indeed, I am always his pupil—I worked no 
longer in his studio; but he would often come to our 


[157] 


ap 


MODELING MY LIFE 


house in the late afternoon and criticize my work, 
always entering with the greeting: “And how are the 
dead coming on?” Then he would give me a long, 
useful criticism, after which we sat around the fire for 
an hour or two talking of art, rarely of people and 


‘things—which at that time hardly entered at all into 


our lives. MacMonnies was an inspiring conversation- 
alist and we were content to keep our house quiet and 
empty for the visits of the master, of which we were 
never forewarned. 

Once, after one of his long twilight visits, I saw him 
bundling up several of the silver portrait medallions I 
had done in New York and brought to Paris with me. 
When I asked what he was going to do with them he 
gave some evasive answer and left without satisfying 
my curiosity. A week later he said casually: 

“By the way—those medallions of yours! I showed 
them to the curator of the Luxembourg Museum. He 
liked them so much that he wants them for the Mu- 
seum. Would you mind giving them to the French 
Government?” 

Would I mind having my work in the Musée du 
Luxembourg—the greatest honor any living artist can 
have! He might just as well have asked me if I 
wanted to go to heaven when I died. Nothing could 
possibly have given me so much inspiring encourage- 
ment. Some people insist that an artist can get along 
without an occasional bouquet; that just working in an 
artistic direction is enough. I don’t agree with such 


[158] 


FINDING MYSELF 


statements. I believe we’ve got to have encouragement 
—just as we've got to have food. 

There were trips scattered throughout those three 
years that had a good deal to do with helping me find 
myself. The first break in the monotony of work came 
when Matilda Brownell went over to England to join 
her family. I arranged to meet them there later on, 
and I found that the dreariness of London in winter, 
its century-old, blackened buildings, its somber mu- 
seums and lugubrious Westminster Abbey offered little 
contrast to my labor for the dead. Arriving on a day 
when the Brownells were off on an excursion, I had 
the somewhat uncomfortable experience of finding that 
my Indiana accent was entirely unintelligible to every 
one with whom I came in contact. And I had a 
good deal of difficulty myself in understanding the 
English language—at least as it was spoken by the 
servants in that small hotel. At dinner, the situation 
reached a hopeless impasse when the pompous waiter 
leaned over my shoulder and said something that 
sounded like ““T-h-k or t-h-n sup, miss.” I hadn’t the 
slightest idea what he meant, even after he had re- 
peated the phrase or question several times; it was only 
after we had both given up all effort at trying to 
understand one another and he had taken the decision 
into his own hands and brought me a plate of thin, 
discolored water, that a faint idea of the. meaning of 
his cryptic remark came to me—but it was then too 
late to countermand the order and have thick soup. 


[159] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


By the time the Brownells arrived, I had decided that 
I would remain definitely dumb throughout the rest of 
the visit. It was much simpler to be taken for a deaf 
mute than some one who spoke an utterly incomprehen- 
sible language. “What does the lady say?’ had been 
repeated so often after the simplest remark I might 
make that I had become completely discouraged. Just 
to find out whether or not my perfectly good Indiana 
accent had ameliorated enough to be understood in 
London, often tempted me to return there—and yet I 
have put it off for many years. That first visit created 
no longing to repeat it. I carried away an impression 
of a most unfeminine, huge, dreary city—an impression 
that was accentuated when I was once more safely back 
in the suavity and softness of Paris, where every one is 
always gay and amiable and understanding, in spite of 
the fact that my French may also be slightly colored by 
a middle-western burr. 

In London I felt like an atom of soot; in Paris, by 
comparison, I always felt like a beam of sunlight—even 
when working for the dead—even, also, while attend- 
ing a funeral, which I did while working on those 
monuments for Woodlawn. I admit that doing such 
a thing at such a moment sounds entirely appropriate, 
but it was sympathy and not morbid curiosity that car- 
ried me to the funeral. A man I had known in Mac- 
Monnies’ studio committed suicide and we all turned 
out in full force to pay him our last respects, though 
the whole funeral proceedings were so dramatic and 


[ 160] 


FINDING MYSELF 


picturesque that none of us could feel very sad about 
it. Everything was done in such a decorative manner, 
with such precision; and each one of us seemed in a 
way to have a special part to play in this last drama. 
After a very short service in the church, we all filed up 
the aisle, threw holy water on the coffin and shook 
hands with each member of the family; then we walked 
behind the hearse to the cemetery, where the same pro- 
cedure was repeated, the sprinkling of holy water and 
shaking of hands; then the coffin was placed in the 
family vault. This custom of placing the dead in a 
tomb beside his kindred struck me as being sympathetic 
and such a comforting contrast to our appalling habit 
of lowering the coffin into the ground and throwing 
clods of earth upon it. We left the cemetery with an 
intimate friend of the artist and returned to his house, 
where we were served Gruyere cheese and Madeira wine 
and spent the rest of the day saying all the nice things 
we could think of about our dead friend and really, 
rather enjoying his party. 

The next trip, on a bicycle through Touraine, was 
much more useful to me than my wanderings through 
London fog. Its success was due principally to a friend 
I made during those days, Anne Archbold, whe, be- 
sides being attractive, had the healthy, normal, sports- 
woman’s disregard—perhaps contempt—for everything 
connected with art. It is most useful and necessary for 
artists to have other than artistic friends. We are very 
apt to grow into the habit of thinking our profession is 


[161 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


the only one worth considering and forget that other 
things are equally necessary to keep the world jogging 
along. Anne Archbold was just the sort of person to get 
my thoughts off my work and thrust me, with no subtle 
changes, into the world of gaiety and pleasure. She 
always cleared the atmosphere when she arrived at our 
little house and soon cleared the house, too, of all its 
inmates by carrying them off somewhere else. Even- 
tually, she fell somewhat under the influence of my 
own concentration upon art, and let me interest her a 
bit in my world, an interest which reached climax sey- 
eral years later when we embarked upon the building 
of her Italian villa at Bar Harbor. 

My friend had broken in upon a long succession of 
weeks of uninterrupted work by carrying me off on that 
trip to the famous French chateaux; and it only took 
me a day or two to find out that her intention was not 
to do sight-seeing, but just to get into the country, 
bicycle all day and spend the nights in wayside inns— 
a thoroughly wholesome and delightful idea. She gave 
in to what she called my whims the first day and fol- 
lowed me conscientiously through the first chateau we 
came to—Blois, I think it was—but after that she al- 
ways remained outside while I entered and wandered 
through the mazes of rooms of every castle I saw. : 

“I’ve seen one,” she replied to my protests. “All the 
rest are exactly like it. So far as I’m concerned, the 
principal object of these chateaux is to cast shade in 
which a tired bicyclist can rest.” 


[ 162 | 


FINDING MYSELF 


Before I began work on the cinerary urn, I decided 
that it was absolutely necessary for me to go to Italy 
and see some Greek tombs. 

“Greek tombs!’ some one exclaimed. “Why go to 
Italy? The Louvre is filled with them.” 

But Italy was calling me and I grasped at any excuse. 
It was calling Matilda, too, and though she had been 
there several times with her family she grew enthu- 
siastic over the idea of personally conducting some 
one—and especially a sculptor—who had never seen 
Italy. 

The trip was robbed of perfection by the discovery 
that Italy is just as cold in winter as any other place— 
perhaps even colder; all those fifteenth-century palaces 
must have been built when the climate was much milder 
than it is to-day. Even the assertion that people wore 
fur-lined robes, used several braziers in each room and 
never opened a window does not convince me that the 
climate hasn’t changed materially. 

I began sniffling as soon as I had spent an hour in 
the Milan cathedral; I continued sniffing when I stood 
before the Colleoni statue in Venice and almost changed 
my mind about equestrian statues; and by the time I 
had shivered for hours before the tombs of the Medicis 
in Florence, I was well on the way towards fatal in- 
fluenza. Some one in the pension suggested that I drink 
hot cognac steadily and thus cure a cold that was be- 
coming as objectionable to others as to myself; and 
accepting this advice, I went out and bought a large 


[163] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


bottle of the believed-to-be curative liquor. Returning 
to the pension with the intention of spending the rest of 
the day in bed with a hot water bottle and frequent hot 
toddies, I happened to pass the Bargello and suddenly 
remembered I had not yet seen anything of Donatello’s. 
Judging from the way I felt at that moment, I decided 
this would be my last chance to look at any sort of 
sculpture. JI gathered together my rapidly failing 
forces, struggled up the famous staircase and at last 
reached the bas-reliefs of the singing boys. Suddenly I 
experienced a tremendous thrill. I forgot I was in a 
dying condition, I forgot I held the bottle of cognac in 
my hand, I forgot everything but the amazing realiza- 
tion that I had found the sort of sculpture that appealed 
to me in a way nothing else had ever done. But my 
exaltation was short-lived. It was completely dispelled 
by a furious guard who came up, spoke to me in a far 
from reassuring way and pointed accusingly at the 
broken bottle on the stone floor and the compromising 
streams of cognac which by this time were filling the 
whole room with strong fumes. 

I always look back on that incident as being my first 
libation to Donatello and to the inspiration that later 
pointed out my way to me. And the second libation— 
if I had had any cognac left—would have been poured 
before Verrocchio’s Boy and Fish which I discovered a 
day or two later in the Palazzo Vecchio. Somehow, the 
work of these two artists seemed to me to be exactly 
what I had been waiting for; they explained to me in 


[164 ] 


FINDING MYSELF 


a flash why I had so long felt a horror and aversion 
to bronze gentlemen in Prince Alberts. 

I knew now what I wanted to do; and a visit the 
next week to the Naples Museum and to Pompeii set- 
tled the matter. The Pompeians understood perfectly 
the real personal use of sculpture. ‘Their houses were 
built round a bronze statuette and the house was given 
its name from the name of that statuette—the House of 
Narcissus, the House of the Faun, etc. I filled my brain 
and my sketch book to overflowing with all those gay 
pagan figures and then and there decided never to do 
stupid, solemn, self-righteous sculpture—even if I had 
to die in a poorhouse. My work should please and 
amuse the world. Banish the thought that I should 
ever try to teach any one anything! My work was 
going to decorate spots, make people feel cheerful and 
gay—nothing more! 

But, alas—I had that cinerary urn awaiting me in 
Paris! It weighed on my chest even while those delight- 
ful bronzes in Naples were dancing in and out about me. 
I had to get it finished; and the sooner it was finished 
and out of the way the sooner the field would be cleared 
for pagan sculpture. But even when I was once more 
at work on it I wasn’t very solemn; I hummed gay 
little tunes; and the urn itself soon began to reflect 
my happiness and turned out to be a rather cheerful 
sort of an aftair—which I don’t think, after all, has 
done any harm to Woodlawn Cemetery. 

But wait!—I had almost forgotten something else 


[165] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


that came into my life at the same time as the inspira- 
tion to do gay instead of solemn things; something that 
has done its part, too, in making life more agreeable. 
We had left Pompeii to go over to Sorrento, and broke 
down on the road in a pouring rain. Castellamare was 
the nearest town that offered shelter; and once safely 
there it was apparent that there was nothing else to do 
but spend the whole day in a dreary hotel—and this in 
spite of the fact that it is almost the only place in that 
beautiful land that literally has no charm. From the 
windows we looked out on a rain-drenched Bay of 
Naples that might just as well have been a view of 
Jersey City. I was in despair—for every day lost 
seemed a tragedy. We had nothing with us to read 
but guidebooks, and we had read them so conscien- 
tiously that we could repeat them by heart. No one 
could suggest anything. It was one of the few times 
that I have wished I knew how to sew or knit or 
crochet or do some of those things with which most 
women get through dull hours. Finally I sat down 
before Matilda and exclaimed: “What do you suppose 
a man would do on a day like this?” | 

She thought this over much more seriously than I 
had expected and at last came out with: “I suppose a 
man would buy all the daily papers to be found and a 
box of cigars—and then sit down comfortably and read 
and smoke the hours away.” 

I rose with alacrity, crossed the deserted hotel lobby, 
went out into the rain and to the nearest tobacco shop 


[166] 


FINDING MYSELF 


where I had noticed some French magazines and novels 
displayed in the window. I bought a dozen of each 
and then began looking at the little glass case that con- 
tained cigars and cigarettes. With a gesture that the 
shopkeeper had no idea was desperate I pointed to the 
cigarettes and held up ten fingers. Without comment 
he handed me ten packages and a box of matchesa I 
was pretty well soaked when I got back to the hotel, 
but I didn’t bother about changing clothes or shoes— 
I was too intent upon starting out to get through that 
day as a man would. I found the most comfortable 
chair in the hotel, scattered the magazines and books 
about me, sat down and crossed my legs, opened a 
package of cigarettes, chose one, lighted it and began 
to smoke. I smoked all that day and have smoked the 
greater part of every day since. 

I have never lectured on any subject—except during 
the war when every one suddenly burst forth with 
forensic eloquence; in fact making a speech is just as 
much agony to me to-day as it was when I was forced 
to read an essay on Utopia before the concentrated 
mass of Terre Haute parents; but as soon as the agita- 
tion against smoking becomes dangerous I am going to 
take to the platform and tour the whole of the United | 
States. It is the most soothing habit one can possibly | 
acquire; it helps one over very serious problems; it — 
develops inspiration; and most of all it quiets nerves 
that might otherwise become trying to one’s neighbors. 

In those days, the Latin Quarter was full of models 


[167] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


and, as soon as it was known that the little house on 
the corner of Boulevard Raspail and Rue Boissonade 
was occupied by artists, our doorbell was almost stead- 
ily tinkling. All I had to do, when I wanted a model, 
was to sit at the window and look over those who 
came by the dozens. They were in great part Italian, 
though there was practically every nation under the sun 
represented. I have always been glad that I got to know 
some of them so well, for many of them contradicted 
all the absurd ideas that the public in general have 
about models being fantastic creatures without any 
morals or education. Up to that time my experience 
in working from life had been quite limited—at least 
in my own studio; and when models were mentioned 
I naturally thought of Lily White and her determina- 
tion to shock me away from MacMonnies’ atelier. But 
there was one whom I got to know very well; indeed, 
we are still great friends. Eleonora de Palme is her 
name, a handsome, sedate, dignified woman who made her 
living by posing for life classes and in studios. She 
showed herself on many occasions to be a good friend 
and assistant to stranded art students in the Quarter. 
Her acts of kindness were without number; and her 
unselfishness became a byword in that world that is 
made up so much of casual good-fellowship. I have 
known her often to pass on to some friend or acquaint- 
ance a job for posing, just because the other woman 
needed it more than she did; she posed for months for 
hard-up artists who were unable to pay her anything; 


[ 168 | 


FINDING MYSELF 


and whenever she heard of any one being ill or in need 
of attention she would turn herself into a most efficient 
trained nurse in the twinkling of an eye. Throughout 
the war she was superb, devoting all her time to cheer- 
ing up the morale of her friends and acquaintances in 
the Quarter—one of those acts that receive so little 
attention or appreciation as they are entirely without 
any picturesque element. 

During that terribly long, bitterly cold winter of 
1917-18 I was working on a statue of La France and 
was very anxious all the time about the clay freezing 
before the work could be finished. If clay freezes it 
of course becomes perfectly hard and when it thaws it 
is nothing but useless mud. Eleonora was posing for 
the statue and understood the risk of my work being 
ruined at any moment if we could not get enough coal 
to keep the studio warm. Each day, before coming to 
me, she would stand in line for hours in order to buy 
one of the tiny sacks of coal that were being doled out; 
she would always come in cheerfully with the sack 
under her arm and the exclamation that “La France” 
—my statue—would not freeze that day. Once, when 
she had been standing in line an interminably long 
time and was told, when her turn came, that there was 
no coal left, she insisted that some must be found in 
order to save “La France.” 

“Save La France! What do you mean?” 

“A statue—made by an American—to show the world 


9 


what we are doing: 


[169] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


The crowd about her heard the explanation, gave a 
cry of “Vive Amérique!” and the man behind the win- 
dow quickly handed out a small sack of coal. 

Eleonora de Palme was not unique. ‘There are many 
others like her. And so far as the profession of posing 
being an easy one, any one who believes that should 
try sitting in one position without moving for an hour; 
he will soon come to the conclusion that he would 
rather do hard work—especially when he considers the 
small price paid to models, who, in those days, received 
only five or six francs for a sitting of four hours. 

Still working on that cinerary urn and thinking of 
the joyousness of Donatello and Verrocchio, I used to 
stop often in the street before Collarossi’s Academy and 
find myself surrounded by fifty or more little children, 
ranging from one year up, who immediately set up a 
howl to be employed as models. They had been 
trained from the moment they could stand on their feet 
for a profession that helped out the family fortunes. 
I often gave them pennies and looked at them long- 
ingly; in spite of their poverty and their fantastic rags, 
they had all the gaiety and fun and joy of living that 
I was growing more and more keen about reproducing. 

These little tots knew they appealed to me and when 
they found out where I lived came in hordes to my 
door and had great fun with the bell, making Parot 
furious—though they invariably assumed most serious 
faces and asked if a model was wanted when the door 


[170] 


FINDING MYSELF 


was opened. They got so troublesome that I had to 
tell Parot to chase them all away—which of course she 
knew how to do perfectly. But one day even her heart 
was touched by one of them and, opening the door 
noiselessly to my studio, she thrust a little boy of four 
into the room. He stood there timidly, looking at me 
through anxious, pleading eyes, dressed in the most ab- 
surd little uniform of a Paris coachman—red waistcoat, 
blue coat and trousers and white top hat. He was so 
cunning and so appealing that I didn’t know whether I 
wanted to laugh or be sad. In the end I smiled at him 
and called him to me. His little face lit up with an 
extraordinarily happy expression and he ran to me with 
outstretched arms—sure at last that I was going to let 
him pose for me. How little I knew at that moment 
that he was Fate in disguise—rushing straight into my 
arms! 

“What am I going to do with him?’ I asked Parot, 
who still stood at the door, smiling and waiting to see 
if I were going to order her to take him away. 

“Let him pose for you, mademoiselle!” 

“But—I’m working on a monument for the dead.” 

Parot’s Gallic shoulders rose with exasperation. “Mon 
Dieu—mademoiselle! It is time to forget the dead! 
We will all soon enough be among them! Do some- 
thing living!” 

Without another word, I motioned her to come into 
the room; and we undressed the little boy. Then, 


[171] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


quite nude, he grabbed the sandwich which Parot had 
thrust into his hand and began dancing about, chuck- 
ling delightedly to himself all the time. 

In that moment a finished work flashed before me. 
I saw a little boy dancing, laughing, chuckling all to 
himself while a spray of water dashed over him. The 
idea of my Frog Fountain was born. It was only neces- 
sary now to get to work and make it reality, thanks to 
Parot. If she hadn’t been attracted by that little boy 
and poked him into my studio, I might have gone on 
for ages working away at that cinerary urn. 

“What do you think of it?’ I asked MacMonnies 
when the bronze cast had been brought back to my 
studio. 

I waited for his criticism—not impatiently and really 
not anxiously, for even though unfavorable criticism on 
his part would have been an awful blow, I knew that 
my work had pleased me more than anything I had ever 
done. Of course I wanted his praise, wanted it tre- 
mendously, but if he hadn’t given it to me, I shouldn’t 
have been discouraged. 

“It’s amusing!” he said at last. “Awfully amusing!” 

“That’s what I meant it to be. That is what my 
work is going to be from now on.” 

He smiled approval. “What are you going to do 
with it?” 

“Take it to New York—and start out on my career 
of designing fountains for gardens—for courtyards—for 
terraces.” 


[172] 


FINDING MYSELF 


“Perhaps that’s a good idea,” he said reflectively. 
“At least it’s worth trying. If you make good in New 
York you won’t have to worry about anything else. I 
believe you have struck a good note and that your diffi- 
culties are over with.” 

Yes—lI felt the same way—that my difficulties were 
over with and that, in finding myself, in realizing what 
I wanted to do, Fortune was going to beam on me from 
then on. Alas—for such moments of confidence! One 
has to pay for them very bitterly. 


[173] 


VI 
THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


My second arrival in New York was as different from 
the first as day is from night; it really had some of the 
elements of a triumphal entry—without the triumph. 
I was met by my friend, Anne Archbold, deposited in 
a gleaming limousine and whisked off to a handsome 
house on Park Avenue before I was perfectly sure that 
I had landed. And yet, all the time that I was expe- 
riencing the comfort of being met by friends and sur- 
rounded by warm hospitality, my thoughts kept turning 
back to that first arrival when I made my way alone— 
with only twenty-eight dollars in my pocket—to a home 
for working women, who were not taken in unless 
they were well armed with letters of introduction. The 
contrast was sharp, though there was a certain simi- 
larity that robbed the cordial welcome of some of its 
perfection. As a matter of fact I had very little 
more money that second time than I had had the first. 
Three years in Paris and trips about the Continent had 
left very little of what I had gained from those monu- 
ments for the dead. The need of work and commis- 
sions was a fact that stared me in the face and made 
me rather restless amid so much luxury. A beautiful 
house and motors and servants were all very well in 


[174] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


their way; I enjoyed them immensely; but they were 
not mine and I felt all the time I was enjoying them 
that they were—at least for me—a sort of disintegrat- 
ing influence. By dinner-time I had fully made up my 
mind to run away from it all and get more into my 
own setting. 

When I made the announcement of this decision loud 
protests went up from the family. What was the 
matter? Didn’t I like them? Wasn't I comfortable? 
Couldn’t I stand spending a few days with them? 
They insisted that I needed time and rest before look- 
ing about; there was no reason for such great hurry— 
so far as they could see. 

“But you don’t seem to understand that I am a 
working woman with a living to make. I should be 
utterly ruined if I stopped on here surrounded by all this 
luxury. The longer I remain the harder it will be for 
me to take up the simple life again.” 

Mr. Archbold listened attentively and then smiled. 
“T’ve decided you are not going to take up the simple 
life—as you call it—for at least six months. I have 
made other plans for you. You are going to Japan and 
China with my daughter. All the tickets have been 
bought and reservations made and you both leave in 
about a fortnight.” 

I shook my head firmly. “You are the kindest people 
in the world. But going off on a trip like that at this 
moment is out of the question. Just before leaving 
Paris I received a letter from Indiana offering me a 


[175] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


commission to do a portrait bust and pedestal of one 
of our state heroes. I accepted it and must begin work 
at once.” 

The arguments lasted all through the evening; but I 
was Just as decided at the end as at the beginning. The 
trip really didn’t tempt me in the least—which made 
it much easier to refuse to go. My great desire at that 
moment was to settle down in New York and get to 
work; anything that interfered with this plan bothered 
me. 

I soon found out that there was a deep-laid plot 
to persuade me against my better judgment. Mac- 
Monnies was in New York at the time and the question 
was put to him and his influence requested. When I 
met him a few days later he said I was making a great 
mistake not to take advantage of such a trip, that the 
art of the East would no doubt be of great benefit in 
formulating my taste and that I would come back with 
a new vision. 

“But—I have a commission to do a portrait of an 
Indiana hero!” I exclaimed anxiously. 

“Let the Indiana hero wait. Go and make the 
acquaintance of the heroes of the Orient.” 

“They don’t interest me in the least. Vm perfectly 
sure they will bore me to death. I want to get a studio 
here in New York, unpack my things, show my Frog 
Fountain and go seriously to work.” 

“All of which you can do six months from now just 
as well as to-day.” 


[176] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


“My Indiana hero!’ I wailed, feeling all my defenses 
crumbling. 

“What did he do? What’s his name?” — 

“I don’t know what he did,” I answered, weakening. 
“His widow wrote me he was the greatest man our 
state had ever produced and that she wanted to make 
him immortal in native granite.” 

So much concentrated determination on the part of 
my friends finally won the day; and in two weeks I 
felt myself swept completely off my feet and rushing 
as fast as I could go across the continent on the way 
to Japan and China. The sensation was exactly that 
of a sleepwalker who is being pushed in different direc- 
tions against his will. Of course the trip was wonderful, 
Japan interesting and China marvelous. We traveled 
like little princesses in a fairy tale, for Standard Oil 
officials met us at each port and arranged everything so 
that we lost no time in seeing much more than the 
average tourist ever runs across. 

But all the time I knew perfectly well that I was off 
the track and that this sort of padded existence was not 
mine—and very likely never would be—and that it was 
delaying my career. Also, it was going to make it all 
the harder to get back into the old traces. When the 
question of going on to India was discussed, I deliber- 
ately balked; when we got back to California and it 
was planned to stop on there for several weeks in that 
lotus-eating sunshine, I balked again. Six months had 
already gone by and my fight for a career was being 


[177] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


put off every day. On the whole I must have been a 
most unsatisfactory traveling companion. 

“T must return to New York,” I finally broke out. 
“T want to be a sculptor—not a little sister of the rich. 
All this luxury is ruining me.” 

It amuses me now to think how I was pursued by the 
furies throughout that whole trip. I really didn’t enjoy 
it at all; and I don’t think I got much in the way of 
inspiration out of it. Of course there are many pieces 
of wonderful sculpture in Japan—especially in the 
museum at Kyoto, where there is a collection of wooden 
figures that seemed almost to have had an influence 
from the Greeks centuries before—but they were so far 
away from the subjects that I had decided to make my 
own that I felt little interest in them. There are many 
worlds and centuries between thousand-handed Buddhas 
and four-faced gods and gay fountains with bronze 
children playing about under sprays of water. 

So back into the whirlpool of New York I went, and 
into a studio that I had signed a lease for before I left. 
It was on the top floor of an office building on 21st 
Street that had been completed while I was away and 
which I had taken from plans on paper in the archi- 
tect’s office—a fatal thing to do. I knew the moment 
I climbed the endless, bare, cement-smelling steps that 
I was not going to like the place; and once within the 
freshly painted mustard-colored walls of the huge room 
I realized it was going to be the most unsympathetic 
abode I had ever lived in. However, I had signed the 


[178] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


lease for a year and was in for it. The Archbolds, 
who were just then doing over their town house, sent 
me some furniture they were discarding and I went to 
work to get things in order, making of the large bare 
room a studio and living quarters. 

The first night I slept there, my depression was in- 
creased by the arrival of a letter informing me that the 
commission for the Indiana hero had been given to 
some one else while I was wandering round the world. 
The widow had evidently grown restless over the delay 
in perpetuating her husband in native granite. Some- 
thing had told me all along that if I went away I 
would lose the chance of doing that state hero. Yes— 
the trip had been a mistake; in fact, in my mood of 
that night I felt sure everything was going wrong. 
There I was on the top floor of a deserted office build- 
ing—it seems I was the only one except the janitor who 
remained there during the night—looking down on one 
of those empty side streets of the great city and feel- 
ing desperately blue, the commission I had counted on 
to give me a start gone, practically no money left and 
nothing in prospect. I didn’t try to blame it all on some 
one else; I was quite willing to accept the whole respon- 
sibility; I had gone off on a joy ride instead of buck- 
ling down to work and this sort of a dreary situation 
was just what I deserved. 

I got into bed with the same sad feeling that I used 
to have when I had spent a silent, miserable evening 
in Union Square, from which I returned to the frugal 


[179] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


meal of those days—baked beans and a bottle of milk. 
Was I to go through that same sort of experience again! 
Was the road of art always to be uphill—at least for 
me! I tossed and tossed, grew more and more dreary 
and finally dozed off to be awakened abruptly by the 
sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs of the deserted 
building. J sat up and listened. As the first floor was 
apparently reached, the footsteps slowed up and then I 
heard the sound of a heavy fist knocking on doors. 
There seemed to be a knock on the first door, then the 
second and so on down the entire row of office doors. 
Then the steps leading to the second floor were ascended 
and knocks repeated as before. Each time a floor was 
passed and the steps sounded nearer and nearer, the 
more alarmed I became. The sounds reverberated 
harshly in the empty building and echoed in an appal- 
ling way. It was exactly like the angel Gabriel—or 
whoever it is—coming steadily nearer and nearer to 
announce to me alone the imminent doomsday. At first 
I wondered if it might not be my imagination, brought 
on by so much depression; then the repetition of the 
sound was so regular that I began to think it was only 
mechanical and not human; finally I was ready to 
accept any explanation—ghosts, burglars, secret service 
men, ghouls, anything. At any rate, my turn was draw- 
ing nearer and nearer; and in expectation of some hor- 
rible end I drew the bed-clothes over my head and lay 
there as speechless and stiff as if the end had come 
several hours before. 


[ 180] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


At last the steps stopped before my door and there 
was a sharp rap. I peered out from under the sheet 
and saw through the ground glass of the door the sil- 
houette of a policeman with a raised club. Strangely 
enough, I thought of the Indiana hero in that moment 
of terror. He had come to chide me—perhaps punish 
me—for running off on a trip and neglecting him for 
so many months. But why should he be wearing a 
policeman’s headgear? Was it in that profession that 
he had distinguished himself? Curiosity got the best of 
me and I gathered up enough courage to speak. 

“What do you want?’ J managed to ask, my throat 
now like a piece of old leather. 

There was a moment of silence; then a deep voice 
replied: “You left the front door on the street open.” 

Relief made me absolutely lifeless for a few moments ; 
then I replied: “I didn’t. Ive got nothing to do with 
the front door. ‘There’s a colored janitor who sleeps 
in the basement.” 

“He’s not there. You're the only person in this 
building. You’ve got to come down and lock the door 
after me when I go out.” 

“And come up all those steps in this deserted build- 
ing alone! Of course I won’t do such a thing! I 
couldn’t! I’m too scared now even to get out of bed. 
I couldn’t stand on my feet.” 

“Then that door’ll be left open all night.” 

“T don’t care—just so this one is closed.” 

He went away grumbling something extremely un- 


[181 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


complimentary about women and I listened to his heavy 
tread growing fainter and fainter. When there was a 
distant sound of a slamming door I sat up, finally gath- 
ered together enough strength to get out of bed, lighted 
the room fully and then dressed. I thought it much 
better to be prepared to receive any more callers that 
might come through that unlocked street door. But 
none came; and after a hundred years or more the dawn 
finally sifted into the room. 

Anne Archbold came in during the morning to find 
out how I had got through that first night alone in an 
office building and when she found me in a completely 
shattered condition, she would listen to no opposition 
on my part to going home with her that afternoon— 
the Archbolds were then at their summer place on the 
Hudson—and returning the next morning with her 
father, who came to town early each day on his yacht. 
Once more I yielded to temptation—under the circum- 
stances I don’t think I should be blamed too much for 
this fall—and spent the next two months in the coun- 
try, coming to town each morning on a yacht, working 
all day and returning in the evening in the same grand 
style. Once more I had slipped back into being a little 
sister of the rich; and though the summer passed most 
delightfully, I chafed very much under the realization 
that I was again on the wrong track. But for the mo- 
ment there seemed nothing else to do. 

I unpacked all the things I had had shipped from 
Paris, things I had done while there, and of course the 

[ 182 | 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


Frog Fountain was given the place of honor. My 
friends who came to the studio admired it immensely, 
which was encouraging in its way, but no one bought 
it and no one who could help me sell it had come to 
my studio. I clung with fatalistic belief to the idea 
that this piece of work was going to get me started on 
the road to fame; I never wavered in this belief; but 
during those long summer months of waiting fame 
seemed to grow more and more distant. 

At this time Stanford White was at the zenith of his 
success. He had built Madison Square Garden and 
crowned it with Saint-Gaudens’ Diana; he had made his 
designs for the Pennsylvania Station and got that under 
headway; but what interested me more than anything 
else he had done were the country houses he was build- 
ing about New York. Everything he had done and was 
doing appealed to me more than the work of any other 
architect; and yet it seemed my fate not to meet him 
in New York for a long, long time. I had often seen 
him in MacMonnies’ studio in Paris when, together, 
they were working on a model of an arch some one had 
put up at the entrance to Prospect Park in Brooklyn 
and which had proved to be a dismal failure. I had 
often watched them at work before the small model of 
this arch, studying its defects and planning to change 
and improve the effect by the application of groups of 
sculpture; but as I was only an assistant in the studio 
I had no chance to come into more than the most casual 
association with these two master artists. But I had 


[ 183 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


remembered Stanford White distinctly from those days. 
He was one of the biggest men I had ever seen, tall, 
broad, with a red face and a mop of red hair that stood 
straight up from his forehead. His quick, nervous ges- 
tures, his assurance in knowing what was right and 
what was wrong, and his almost infallible taste made a 
very lasting impression on me. Some one had described 
him as having the wind back of him—which always 
seemed to me a perfect description. You couldn’t help 
feeling that he was a tremendous vital force going 
entirely—sweeping ahead—in the direction of creating 
beautiful things. The stories told of his adventures in 
art were inspiring and fired the imagination. One of 
these stories told how he had gone to Italy and hired 
a large sailing boat which he kept anchored at Leghorn 
while he traveled all over Italy buying everything that 
appealed to him—frescoes, entire ceilings and wood- 
work of rooms, mantelpieces, odd bits of marble, paint- 
ings, stuffs, brocades, Genoese velvets, everything and 
anything that would make the houses he was designing 
for America more beautiful—and when the boat was 
crammed to overflowing and could hold nothing more, 
he got on it, weighed anchor and sailed off home with 
the precious cargo—a sort of modern Ulysses returning 
with the treasures of Troy. He was undoubtedly a 
picturesque figure—a condottiere of medieval days ad- 
venturing in art. 

I went on hoping all the time that I might meet 
Stanford White again and have an opportunity of ask- 


[184] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


ing him to come to my studio and look at my work; but 
this seemed never to come about. At last, giving up 
all hope, I finally asked permission of the Emmetts— 
friends I had made in Paris—to place my Frog Foun- 
tain in their studio for a few weeks. Bay Emmett was 
then famous for her portraits of millionaires and sena- 
tors and a great number of people were passing in and 
out of her studio all the time. I thought my foun- 
tain might attract more attention there than in my own 
studio; but though I waited anxiously for encouraging 
reports only words of praise came my way. No order 
for it was forthcoming—no orders for anything—and 
my funds had now quite definitely reached the vanish- 
ing point. I saw the same old New York of the past | 
surging up and getting hold of me again; I even saw a 
steady diet of baked beans and milk coming nearer and 
nearer. Of course the situation couldn’t be as bad as 
it was before because I now had friends who would 
come to the rescue at the first cry for help and who were 
always about to protect me from loneliness. But I 
didn’t want to cry for help. I never had—and I never 
would. I could make a living some way; I had done 
it before; but I wanted to make it in the way I had 
chosen, and hung on desperately to an ideal. 

I very probably bored the Emmetts to distraction with 
my constant enquiries about the Frog Fountain, who 
had seen it, what had been said about it, etc., etc. Yet 
they never showed impatience and were always most 
encouraging. Sometimes I almost began to feel that my 


[185] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


faith in that little boy was a curse. I couldn’t help 
thinking of him all the time and wondering when he 
was going to bring me the help I now so urgently 
needed. 

One day I sat down and wrote a letter to Stanford 
White. I told him I had had the pleasure of meeting 
him in MacMonnies’ studio in Paris—that threadbare 
form of beginning such a letter; then I went on to say 
that I had come to New York to get something to do 
in the way of sculpture, that my studio was only a 
few blocks from his office and that I would appreciate 
it very much if he would come and see the things I had 
with me. 

I didn’t have to wait very long for his reply. As a 
matter of fact it came the very next day, a short and 
curt reply, in which he said that he was far too busy 
a man to go round visiting studios, that he was rushed 
to death, had a thousand calls in every direction and 
hadn’t a free moment. 

This indifference hurt me very deeply and then made 
me furious. I worked up a very strong case against 
Mr. White and wrote it out to him in a letter I sent off 
in reply to his. I told him I didn’t think my request 
was nearly so extraordinary as he had found it; and 
that furthermore I did not think the most important 
architect in New York had the moral right to refuse to 
investigate the work of young sculptors about him—no 
matter how busy he might be. It was a relief when I 
finished this letter, read it over, sealed it and sent it off. 


[ 186 ] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


Of course I got no reply to it; I didn’t expect one; and 
more than that I felt that I had definitely wiped out 
any further chances of ever interesting Stanford White 
in my work. 

A month later I was trying to cross Ronee 
Street at that congested hour between noon and one 
o'clock. Receiving a signal from the policeman to make 
a dash, I hurried out into the middle of the street and 
crashed straight into a very large man coming my way. 
After the first sensation of concussion had passed I 
looked up and found myself staring at a very red, 
vexed face that was in some way familiar to me. I 
continued to stare, trying all the time to recall who it 
was, and finally heard my name spoken. 

““Oh—you are Miss Scudder?” 

I nodded and suddenly remembered. ‘“Yes—Mr. 
White,” I answered a bit breathlessly. 

At this point in the adventure the policeman called 
to us to move on and explained that the middle of 
Forty-second Street and Fifth Avenue had not yet been 
arranged for lengthy conversations. Stanford White 
smiled indulgently at the master of traffic and then 
turned back to me. 

“T saw that little figure of yours the other day in the 
Emmetts’ studio. What do you call it?” 

“Frog Fountain,’ I murmured. 

“T like it. How much do you want for it?” 

Again the policeman interrupted, this time with raised 
club; but it would have taken the whole force and all 


[187] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


the clubs in New York to make me budge at that mo- 
ment; besides, I was talking to a man much bigger than 
the one who was trying to make us get out of the way. 

“A thousand dollars,’ I answered with a calm that 
took so much nervous energy to produce that I was a 
wreck for days afterwards. 

“All right,’ said Stanford White. ‘Tl take it. 
Send it to my office. Good-by.” 

He disappeared in the crowd and I barely escaped 
being crushed at that crucial moment of my career by 
a Fifth Avenue bus. 

You may be sure I lost no time in getting my Frog 
Fountain out of the Emmetts’ studio and into Mr. 
White’s office. I even went to the extravagance of hir- 
ing a hansom cab—how I regret their disappearance !— 
and carried it there myself that same afternoon and 
waited an interminably long time for him to appear. 
In the end I had to leave without seeing him; but the 
next morning a check for one thousand dollars was in 
the post. 

If I were making a diagram of my career with marks 
to indicate the most important points—milestones—I 
should certainly indicate in red letters the day on 
which Stanford White bought my Frog Fountain. In 
order to appreciate how important this was to a young 
sculptor you must know that at that time he was the 
one man every one was seeking, demanding, imploring 
to build not only magnificent edifices and churches and 
public buildings but elaborate country houses as well. 


[ 188 ] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


He was being sought all over the United States by those 
who wanted to build something exceptionally beautiful 
and cared nothing for the expense involved. To have 
him buy my first really important piece of work meant 
much more to me than [ even realized myself. It was 
months later that the effect of this purchase began to 
loom up as the dominating factor in my career. 

It is really wonderful what a difference in one’s out- 
look on the world a thousand dollars can make. With 
that check in hand I immediately gave up that hor- 
tibly unsympathetic office-building-imitation-studio and 
moved into one [I had been looking at with longing 
eyes for some time—the Gibson Studios on Thirty-third 
Street. It was a ramshackle old building that had been 
taken over by artists and architects who wanted sur- 
roundings with more atmosphere than modern, fireproof 
buildings gave. At that time the Albert Herters, 
Chester Aldrich, William Welles Bosworth and Robert 
Reid had studios there—all of whom had spent years 
in Paris and were trying to reproduce a bit of its charm 
in New York. I fairly reveled in that old-fashioned 
house. I had a private staircase that gave on the street 
so that I was free from all communication with the rest 
of the house; and the bedroom and bath and most sym- 
pathetic, well-lighted studio made up a little suite that 
suited me perfectly. Of course there were some draw- 
backs, among them the rats, whose hunger made them 
very insistent at night, but an equally hungry gray cat 
soon managed to get them under control; there were 


[189] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


the noise and smell of stables near by; there was the 
near-by roar of the elevated; and the whole building 
was a dangerous firetrap—it did burn down soon after 
I left it—but in spite of what others called impossible 
defects, I enjoyed every minute of the time spent there. 

I often find myself comparing living in that funny old 
building with the more modern studios I have since had 
in New York. Those very new sumptuous studio apart- 
ments that appear now to be so popular are my pet 
abomination. All their conveniences—inconveniences, 
really—their elevators, their steam heat, their push but- 
tons, their dumb-waiters, their telephones, their gas log 
open fireplaces, their men in livery at the door—these 
so-called comforts seem to rob them of all atmosphere. 
I have tried and found it absolutely impossible to do 
any imaginative or creative work in such places. To 
begin with, they put an artist too closely in contact 
with the world; he can never call a single hour his 
own; and of course any one who has a telephone in his 
studio might as well give up at once any idea of con- 
secutive work. When I eventually had some success 
and became more or less the fashion in garden sculp- 
ture, my telephone used to ring from nine o’clock in the 
morning until ten at night. Of course I had to have 
the wretched thing; if one doesn’t bow down before the 
law of telephoning in New York one might as well be- 
come a hermit—for that is exactly what would happen 
in an age when no one writes notes or calls without 
making an appointment. And after I had the thing put 


[190] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


in, I had to answer it. But my patience was sorely 
tried when, in the midst of work, a call would come 
and some one’s secretary would ask if it was I and 
then say: “This is Mrs. So-and-So’s secretary speaking. 
Please hold the wire. Mrs. So-and-So wishes to speak 
to you.” And there I would stand, first on one foot 
and then on the other, hanging on to the receiver, while 
Mrs. So-and-So took her bath or had her hair waved or 
finished her luncheon—losing a good half-hour’s work. 
Finally I used to say to those very busy ladies’ secre- 
taries that if Mrs. So-and-So wished to speak to me she 
would have to come to the telephone and ring for me 
herself. I sometimes think that people living in New 
York can put on more lugs and get by with them than 
any people I have met anywhere else in the world. I 
don’t think I can recall a single instance of being kept 
waiting on the convenience of some one else in Paris— 
at least never at the telephone, because perhaps I never 
use the telephone in Paris! 

I had hardly got comfortably settled in that Thirty- 
third Street studio when a very good commission came 
my way—a statue of Japanese Art to be placed on the 
facade of the Brooklyn Museum of Arts and Sciences. 
It was a twelve-foot statue and I enjoyed doing it very 
much, especially after my recent trip to the Orient— 
after all, that trip was not entirely wasted—but the 
committee appointed to pass on the design became rather 
troublesome and made frequent visits to my studio to 
make criticisms and suggestions. Once, when they be- 


[191] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


came particularly insistent in their comments and de- 
sired changes, I thought of using the method Corpeaux 
had employed when he was composing the Flora group 
for the fagade of the Louvre. During each visit of the 
committee to his studio something dropped from the 
scaffolding onto some one’s head until the entire com- 
mittee was either in hospital or confined to bed and the 
sculptor was able to continue his work unmolested. But, 
on the whole, this was a very cheerful period. I par- 
ticularly recall delightful parties at the Emmetts’ studio 
in 64, Washington Square, South. The three sisters— 
Bay, Rosina and Leslie—had been in Paris at the same 
time with me and our friendship continued when we all 
began work in New York. They knew every one in and 
out of society and were constantly entertaining in a 
most amusing way. Their fancy-dress parties were most 
amusing. I adore nothing more than dressing up in 
fantastic costumes. At one of these costume affairs I 
became enthusiastic enough to get myself up as an Aus- 
trian officer, an enthusiasm which lessened as the evening 
progressed and I found the trousers were so tight that 
I couldn’t sit down and the disguise so perfect that 
when I started home a cabman called to me in a loud 
voice: “Cab, sir!’ 

The National Arts Club was a great comfort to me 
during those days. It was then on Thirty-fourth Street 
in an old building, a bit cramped as to space, but home- 
like and cheerful, where one could get good, simple, 
cheap food and meet one’s fellow workers daily. Later 


[192] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


on, when the little club grew ambitious and moved into 
more pretentious quarters on Gramercy Park and was 
obliged, in order to meet the increased expenses, to take 
a quantity of people who had no connection whatever 
with the fine arts, it lost all its charm—at least for 
me. Somehow it at once became nondescript—neither 
Bohemian nor worldly; and cheerless beyond words. 
The attempt to be smart seemed foolish. Several bell- 
boys at the door always pounced on me when I ap- 
peared and asked if I were a member of the club; and 
when I went into the restaurant, where I never saw 
any one I knew, I was immediately confronted again 
with the question, even before my order was taken: 
“Are you a member of the club?’ Once I got so exas- 
perated that I turned to the woman who was serving 
me, and said: “You are the sixth person who has asked 
me that question in the last five minutes. What under 
the sun is the matter with you?’ ‘Well, miss,” she 
replied, ‘“‘we has our orders. Just last week a lady 
comes here with several friends, orders everything on 
the bill of fare, eats it and then goes away after sign- 
ing the check ‘Mrs. Lobster.’ We finds out, after she’s 
got away, that there’s no such name on the books. You 
see, miss, the club has to protect itself.” I suppose she 
was quite right; but the incident decided me to leave 
the club to those Mrs. Lobsters who might get more 
pleasure out of it than I did. It had outgrown its use- 
fulness for me. 

Bohemian things are attractive; worldly things are 


[193] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


attractive; but there is a wide gulf between the two. 
Any one who tries to bridge that gulf and mix the gay 
and careless with the smart and conservative is usually 
in for a pretty big tumble. To try to form a club on 
such a basis is absolutely hopeless. 

After I resigned from the National Arts Club I 
joined the Cosmopolitan Club, which one of the mem- 
bers described to me as being the best adapted to the 
needs of women with professions. I don’t believe there 
is a club in New York of which so many women desire 
to become members. At any rate I got in hot water 
with the board of governors by putting up, shortly after 
I was taken in, the name of a woman whom I had never 
seen. She was the wife of an artist I had known quite 
well in Paris. He had just returned to New York, mar- 
ried and wanted his wife to have friends there and the 
conveniences of club life. Without giving the matter 
much thought I proposed the aspirant. A few days 
later one of the committee on membership stopped me 
in the club. 

“Janet Scudder—what’s this friend of yours like that 
you have just put up for membership?” 

I mumbled a reply. 

“What’s the color of her hair?” she went on, insist- 
ently. 

“The color of her hair?” I repeated. “How should I 
know!” 

She nodded convincingly. “I knew you didn’t know 
that woman. And I just want to know what you mean 


[194] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


by putting up the name of a woman you have never 
seen! Don’t you know the Cosmopolitan Club is the 
most exclusive in New York!” 

It certainly was and so many women asked me to 
propose them as members that I finally resigned from 
the club to avoid further complication. 

Later on I joined the Colony Club, which is one of 
the best managed in America—and for that matter in 
the world. I should live permanently in New York if 
it were possible to have quarters indefinitely in that very 
comfortable club. One is so absolutely protected from 
all the ennuis of life there; the food is perfect, the 
service could not possibly be better and the rooms are 
charming. But it is terrible, after two weeks of bliss— 
the extreme time allowed one to remain there—to go 
forth into the cold bleak world again and fend for 
oneself. Whenever I leave the Colony Club to go out 
to find an apartment or hotel I feel exactly like Eve 
going forth out of the garden of Eden. 

After that meeting with Stanford White in the mid- 
dle of Forty-second Street, he disappeared—at least as 
far as I was concerned—as if he had never existed. I 
didn’t even know for a long time what he had done 
with my Frog Fountain. Then, out of a clear sky, a 
letter came one day, signed by him, asking me to call 
at his office at a certain hour on a certain day. I was 
there at the hour named—in fact I was there half an 
hour in advance—and was given a comfortable chair 
in one of the outer offices. Whoever gave me that com- 


[195] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


fortable chair was a most considerate person and prob- 
ably knew what I was in for. I waited one hour and a 
half before there was the least sign of my presence being 
noticed. Then, one of the doors suddenly burst open 
and Stanford White rushed into the room, shook my 
hand vigorously and said: 

“Oh, Miss Scudder—I wanted to—” 

He got no further, for close on his heels appeared his 
secretary, who said Chicago was calling him on the tele- 
phone. He rushed out and I once more sank back into 
the comfortable chair. 

Another half-hour and he burst into the room again. 

“Oh, Miss Scudder—I wanted to—” 

Again the secretary on his heels with some murmured 
words that carried him off without further explanation! 

By this time my anxiety and curiosity to know what 
he really did want were getting the best of me. The 
comfortable chair was no longer comfortable; I had to 
leave it and walk about a bit to keep calm. The third 
time Mr. White appeared, he had his hands full of 
sketches which he thrust into mine before any one could 
possibly call him away. 

“Designs for two fountains,” he said breathlessly. 
“Yes—take them along—make sketches for the figures. 
Ive indicated about what I want. Yes—yes—you’ll 
see. Bring them back as soon as you can. Work out 
your own ideas for them. By the way, I’ve placed your 
Frog Fountain in the conservatory of the Chapin house 
and I want you to have another made in marble for Jim 


[196] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


Breese’s Long Island garden. Better have three move 
of the bronzes cast. That will make four. Quite 
enough of them. You don’t want thém to get too 
common. Now—about these designs—~” 

Again that bothersome secretary had appeared and 
over his shoulder Mr. White called to me: “Bring in 
the sketches the moment you have them ready. We can 
talk them over. Good-by.” 

I haven’t the slightest idea how I got out of that 
office. If I had fallen out of the window or down the 
elevator shaft I am perfectly sure I should not have 
been hurt. They say a drunken man can fall any dis- 
tance and not be hurt; and I was surely in an intoxi- 
cated condition that day—the intoxication of pure joy. 
My supreme chance had come. I was to collaborate 
with the greatest architect in America—in fact the 
greatest architect of the world at that time. No won- 
der I was dizzy and almost out of my head! I suppose 
I walked for hours afterwards; I only remember being 
in continuous motion for a long time; and through it 
all I kept repeating to myself: “You are made! You 
are a success! No more canned baked beans—never 
—never—never! You are on the highroad—right in 
the middle! But—don’t lose your head!’ 

I made several trips to McKim, Mead and White’s 
offices that winter, taking my small models with me in 
a hansom cab and carrying them up in the elevator; but 
my conversations with the great architect were nothing 
but staccato fragments slipped in between long-distance 


[197] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


telephone calls and consultations. Stanford White’s 
existence was the most hectic any one could possibly 
have lived; and yet he always knew exactly what he 
wanted and was able to explain his ideas in a most clear, 
distinct, and inspiring manner. : 

During the spring and summer, when I was invited 
by Mrs. White to their summer home at St. James, I 
began to see another side of this great man. In the 
midst of his family, in a delightful house filled with 
treasures from Spain and Italy, surrounded on all sides 
by the beautiful, gentle country of the north shore of 
Long Island, I learned to know him, not as a rushing, 
business-distracted architect, but as a thoughtful host 
who was always gay and animated and amusing. 

I don’t think there has ever been much questioning 
of the fact that Stanford White was the greatest archi- 
tect America has ever produced; but lately I have had 
the feeling that appreciation of him has been diminish- 
ing—or at least has become indifferent. Especially 
have I this feeling when I see the beautiful buildings 
he designed in New York being ruthlessly torn down to 
make place for larger and hideous edifices that are being 
built without any of the feeling for beauty that White 
put into everything he did.. Thank Heaven the Penn- 
sylvania Station will probably be left standing at least 
during our lifetime! Nothing could be found to show 
the simplicity and dignitv of good taste as this building 
does; and it is interesting to know that Mr. White 
designed the main waiting-room from precise measure- 


[198] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


ments he had made himself from the interior of the 
church of Santa Maria degli Angeli in Rome, and that 
the Travertine marble, of which the facade is con- 
structed, was brought all the way from the Roman 
Campagna. It was details like these that made Stan- 
ford White’s work so different and so much more beau- 
tiful than any one else’s. He took infinite pains and 
endless time and trouble to get some subtle effect that 
many people would never be aware of until it had been 
explained to them. But every artist knew at once what 
his work and its marvelous effects were due to. 

After he had counseled me to have only four copies 
of my Frog Fountain made—advice which I unques- 
tioningly accepted and abided by, even though all four 
were immediately sold—TI had a telegram from him one 
day asking me to send one of these fountains to his 
office the next day without fail. I went myself, found 
him absent and left a note explaining that he had told 
me to restrict the number to four, that I had done so 
and that none was left. The following day I got a 
letter from him saying I had done quite right—though 
he was awfully sorry not to have one more to put in a 
club house he was building in New York; and, at any 
rate, I’d better hurry up and design another fountain 
figure as quickly as possible. 

And then, almost immediately following this conver- \ 
sation, came a letter from the Metropolitan Museum 
informing me that the committee wished to add some 
examples of American sculpture to the Museum’s ex- 


[199] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


hibits and would like to include my Frog Fountain in 
-the list. My delight over this letter was somewhat 
dampened by the closing paragraph, in which it was 
stated that the committee hoped that I would be willing 
to make a substantial reduction in my price as only a 
limited amount was available. Another Frog Fountain 
was cast, with the permission of the original owners of 
this figure, and sold to that very poor institution for a 
sum that was less than half the amount the other owners 
of this bronze had paid for it. 

Museums are rather strange and incomprehensible 
institutions to me. The more I know of them the more 
difficult they become. I suppose they have to be very 
careful about taking risks and making decisions and are 
always open to violent criticisms, especially from those 
who know nothing about what they are criticizing. I 
seem to have run the gamut of most of them now. Be- 
ginning with the Metropolitan I soon went on to the 
Congressional Library; then came the Herron Institute 
of Arts in Indianapolis, the Chicago Art Institute, the 
Peabody Institute, and so on until recently the Luxem- 
bourg Museum in Paris ends the list. And with the 
museums came those medals which are so much appre- 
ciated by all painters and sculptors. My first one came 
from the World’s Fair in Chicago, then followed the 
St. Louis Exposition, the Buffalo Exposition and the 
San Francisco Exposition—changing color and develop- 
ing from copper to silver; at least the diploma which 
accompanied the San Francisco award carried the in- 

[ 200 | 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


formation that I could have it silvered at my own ex- 
pense, which the committee was not able to afford! I 
valued all these medals tremendously and showed them 
off with as much pride as the lady with ten sons dis- 
plays photographs of her children until, a few years ago, 
a burglar entered my house at Ville d’Avray and car- 
ried them all off together with the kitchen scales. Then, 
of course, there were honorable mentions, which I never 
valued very highly; they always seemed to me too in- 
discriminately distributed. Only recently I received one 
from the Chicago Art Institute, which I immediately 
returned with the suggestion that it be given to some 
struggling young student who needed such encourage- 
ment. Chicago was very kind to me during my early 
days of struggle; I have a great deal to thank her for; 
but I do not expect her to continue endowing me in my 
middle age with carefully rolled-up, parchment-printed 
honorable mentions. 

I was once present at a meeting between the directors 
of two museums. The question came up as to when a 
masterpiece should begin to be a masterpiece. One of 
the directors said a museum should not buy a work of 
art until it had been a masterpiece for at least fifty 
years; that it was not fair to the public to take any 
risks. Ever since I heard that idea advanced I have 
been wondering who under the sun is going to start the 
work of art off on its fifty-year journey of becoming a 
masterpiece, if the museums don’t. I have often tried 
to visualize the vicissitudes of a work of art before it 


[201 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


becomes recognized. I know of one case in which a man 
stopped in at an exhibition, looked at a piece of sculp- 
ture, exclaimed: ‘“‘Ha—that’s not half bad!” marked 
the number in the catalogue with an X and carried the 
catalogue home. His wife took the catalogue with her 
to the exhibition, saw the X, examined the piece of 
sculpture and told her friend that some one evidently 
thought it was good because an X had been placed 
opposite the number. ‘This friend carried the news to 
her friend and in the end the work was purchased by 
some one, placed in his house and gradually became 
known as being such a good thing that a museum 
director came to see it and declared it a masterpiece. A 
teplica was ordered and the work eventually placed in 
a museum. In this case fifty years were not necessary 
to find out its value; but there is no denying the fact 
that the success of this one work of art dates back to 
that original remark of “Ha—that’s not half bad!” 
This story would point to the fact that, after all, it is 
the public that decides whether a thing is good or bad 
and not the museums. I am very much inclined to) 
think it is the public myself and not museums or art 
critics; and it is surely the public that pays us a living 
wage for our work—and not the museums that only pay 
fabulous prices when a man has been dead so long that 
even his descendants can reap no benefit from his success. _ ) 
This criticism is not said in ill nature. I have been 
well treated by museums in America; I have not had to 
wait fifty years to see my bronzes placed, though I have 
[202 | 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


never received from such sources any amount that would 
compare to what the individual purchasers are willing 
to give; but I do think institutions are indifferent and 
parsimonious to the struggling young artists in whose 
hands rests the future of American art. What is needed 
is museums which would interest themselves in what is 
being done now and not so much in what has been done 
in bygone centuries. 

During the summer, after that stimulating winter of 
work with Stanford White, I was spending a few weeks 
with a sick friend near Philadelphia. My principal 
diversion was to walk down to the station each morn- 
ing and carry back the post. One day, on my way back 
with a bundle of letters and papers, I found the shade 
of a tree very attractive, sat down and opened one of 
the papers to see what was going on in the world. I can 
still see those heavy black headlines. Stanford White 
killed on the roof garden of Madison Square Garden— 
ruthlessly shot down in one of the most beautiful build- 
ings he had designed. It was a hot sunny day; but to 
me it suddenly became cold and gray; and I believe 
there were hundreds of people who felt as I did at that 
moment—all those who were associated with Stanford 
White in making America a more beautiful and attrac- 
tive place to live in. The captain of the ship of Fine 
Arts had suddenly been taken from us; and we all knew 
there was no one to fill his place. 

Several weeks after Mr. White’s death I received a 
letter signed E. Rarig, asking for an interview and invit- 


[ 203 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


ing me for tea at Sherry’s. No explanation was offered 
and the only suggestion made that threw light on the 
reason for the request for an interview was the state- 
ment that this unknown, to me, Mr. Rarig had met me 
in Mr. White’s office. I found the letter intriguing and 
tried my best to think why it should have been written. 
In the end I accepted the invitation and went to Sherry’s 
on the appointed afternoon, wondering how we were 
going to find each other in the crowd. When I entered 
the tea room a man with a vaguely familiar face came 
forward to meet me. We shook hands ceremoniously 
and were immediately conducted by the head waiter to 
a table where a most elaborate tea had already been 
placed. My unknown friend apparently required sus- 
tenance before divulging the reason of our meeting, for 
he fell upon the tea and muffins and cakes and made no 
immediate steps towards explanations; and I, following 
his example, ate the food put before me and awaited 
results, though I must confess the mystery was increas- 
ing every moment. He made a few casual remarks 
about nothing in particular and I replied in like vein; 
but all the time I was most industriously reviewing all 
the faces of the men I had seen in Mr. White’s office 
and failing entirely to place the one before me. 

My curiosity was beginning to get the better of me 
and I was almost on the point of exclaiming, “Well— 
what is it all about anyhow?’ when my host’s expres- 
sion suddenly caught my attention. His eyes were 


[204 ] 


THE FROG FOUNTAIN 


actually shining as though they had tears just behind 
them. 

“Miss Scudder,” he said at last, “I see you don’t 
remember me. I was Mr. White’s private secretary.” 

Then I remembered him perfectly; though it was not 
extraordinary that I had not recognized him before, as 
he had always flashed in and out of Mr. White’s office, 
calling him to the long-distance telephone, reminding 
him of an appointment, announcing some caller—all 
done with such lightning speed that I never really saw 
him once in a stationary pose. 

“Of course—I know you now!” J said. 

“And naturally you are wondering why I asked you 
to meet me here this afternoon.” 

I nodded, frankly curious. 

“It was because I wanted to talk to some one who 
I knew felt his loss as I do,” he continued. “I wished 
to talk to some one like yourself about him. He meant 
so much to me—and I know what he meant in your 
work to you. Also—I wanted to tell you some of the 
things he said about you—things which perhaps you 
don’t know. Do you remember a letter you wrote to 
him in reply to one in which he said he hadn’t the time 
to come and see your work?” 

Of course I remembered it; though it had never been 
referred to in my conversation with Mr. White. 

“That made a great impression on him. He had 
never received a letter like that from an artist. All 


[205 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


the others had been apologetic and pleading. But the 
way you came right out from the shoulder and told him 
it was up to him to come and see what you were doing 
gave him a jolt. Suppose you hadn’t written that 
letter!” 

I nodded. ‘“‘Yes—suppose I hadn’t!” 

“Would you like to have me tell you what he did 
say after he saw your first fountain figure?” 

I have no intention of repeating the things said to 
me that day. I keep them for my own private encour- 
agement. If I get a bit down over something that has 
not turned out as well as expected, I invariably recall 
the conversation of that day and at once begin to feel 
immensely cheered up. And I have never ceased to be 
grateful to Mr. Rarig. I never knew his first name nor 
anything else about him and I have never seen him 
since; but it was a rather wonderful experience to have 
some one appear out of the unknown and give me a 
message that was exactly like a message from the dead. 

So, after all, the day Parot pushed the timid little 
boy in the coachman’s suit into my Paris studio and told 
me to stop working for the dead and do something that 
was gay and full of the joy of life was the veritable 
moment of inspiration in my career. The fountain 
that little boy posed for was the first step out on the 
road that led me along until I reached a point where I 
was designing fountains for the gardens of McCormicks 
and Pratts and Rockefellers, Jennings, and so on. | 


[ 206 | 


VII 
FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


I wave heard it said that as soon as Americans make 
their money the first thing they do is to buy an auto- 
mobile, the second purchase is a fur coat and the third 
step is to have the most expensive operation possible 
performed. Honesty makes me confess that I followed 
this rule in one respect. When I had a really good 
bank account I indulged in something I had not only 
wanted but needed for years—a fur coat. I bought it 
in Paris from a very smart couturier—a long moleskin 
coat with a voluminous blue fox collar. It was quite 
the most sumptuous coat imaginable. I looked like 
nothing less than a million dollars in it—a fact which 
the customs officer who inspected my trunks when I 
arrived in New York appreciated fully. 

“You say you're an American artist temporarily re- 
siding in France,” he commented, looking at my dec- 
laration. 

I nodded and tried a smile that apparently got no 
reaction from the harassed officer. 

“What part of America do you come from?” 

I felt the situation was becoming dangerous—at least 
so far as getting my things passed free of duty went; 


[207 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


however I went on smiling and let my voice drop back 
into the old middle-western burr. 

“Terryhut—Indiana,” I drawled. 

He suddenly answered my smile with a very broad 
grin. “Gosh—you’ve got your nerve! D’you suppose 
I’m easy enough to think they make fur coats like that 
in Indiana!’ 

But even if the coat were suspicious my drawl was 
unquestioned and won the day. 

How susceptible all of us are to good clothes; those 
who are wearing them as well as those who look at 
them! A famous Paris dressmaker has said that if 
women only realized that it was the only message they 
had for the greater part of the world they would take 
more trouble to make this message as beautiful and 
pleasure-giving as possible. Many of us have a much 
more serious and important message to give others than 
just the mere pleasure of wearing good clothes. I 
always resent the fact that we are all much more likely 
to get considerate attention when we appear well dressed 
and with the air of having the best the world affords; 
but it is true. I know it from experience. Smart clothes 
accomplished a great deal for me; they gave me more 
confidence in facing New York and I think they were 
rather a comfort to my friends. 

“Thank heavens you have at last got something be- 
side that horrible checked golf cape!’ Julia Marlowe 
said to me when I went into her dressing-room one 
night soon after a return from Paris. ‘You know, 


[ 208 | 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


Janet, I’ve always loved you dearly—you are one of 
the people really necessary to me—but you can't 
imagine how I have suffered from your clothes! Every 
time I shut my eyes I can see that terrible checked cape.” 

She and I had been very good friends ever since we 
met in Paris years before, just after she had married 
Robert Taber; and our friendship had grown all the 
time her success was increasing and my work was being 
gradually recognized. 

I remember at this time an amusing incident which 
occurred with some friends of mine who were going 
through the throes of trying to get into New York 
society—an incident which explains perfectly why they 
never succeeded in their ambition. The daughter, my 
friend, was very anxious to meet Julia Marlowe and 
we had arranged to go to see her in a new play, after 
which I was to take her behind the scenes and present 
her. When her mother found out our plan, she said 
it would never do, that if New Yorkers heard that 
her daughter was associating with actresses they would 
never accept her into the charmed circle. The daughter 
wept and I laughed and the evening ended with my 
departure for the theater alone in a carriage filled with 
American Beauty roses which the daughter had ordered 
as an offering to the actress. The attitude of the 
mother in this case reminds me of a woman who was 
describing some social function she had attended and 
said: “Every one was there—from Vanderbilts down 
to artists.” 7 


[209 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Just such foolish, stupid ideas as these invariably ruin 
any one’s chances of becoming a part of smart life. 
Smart life, if nothing else, is exceedingly independent 
and fearless. Its snobbism is what the French call 
snobisme du gout—which means giving the cold shoul- 
der to every one and everything that is banal and tire- 
some. ‘There are certain conventions that are observed, 
but they are more the conventions of manners and 
breeding than what might be called provincial morals. 
On the whole, it has been my observation that what is 
considered the smart group in any city—be it Paris or 
Chicago or New York—is made up of personalities that 
are individual for various reasons, distinction of family, 
distinction of talents, distinction in business, distinction 
of person—but invariably distinction of some sort. I 
really do not believe that distinction of money succeeds 
socially anywhere. Just the mere matter of having 
money never gets one into the charmed circle. There 
are thousands of people in New York who are anxious 
to pay their way most liberally, but they get nowhere 
simply because they lack those distinctive qualities that 
make them amusing and interesting. The mere matter 
of having an income of five or ten thousand dollars a 
day doesn’t necessarily make that person an amusing 
addition to a party. There must be something else— 
and without that something else the climber fails. 

Early in my experience in New York this theory was 
brought very clearly before me through some friends I 
had made there. The man and his wife were delightful 


[210 | 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


people—clever and interesting and most amusing. I 
had met them about and had been told they were among 
the leaders of New York society. When the wife asked 
me to tea I immediately got out my best bib and tucker 
and prepared to make as good an appearance as pos- 
sible. The address was not particularly stimulating— 
Lexington Avenue. The house was even less impressive, 
a grubby narrow building in front of which the street 
was piled high with débris from recent repairs. A maid 
opened the door and showed me up narrow stairs to a 
front sitting room in which a small boy was playing 
in the middle of the floor. I had to step over a toy 
railway to find a seat in a shabby chair. The wife came 
in, in her breezy, delightful way, told me amusing stories 
interspersed with ‘Darling, not so much noise, please” 
addressed to the child, gave me a frugal sort of tea; 
and I had a charming time. In fact, I enjoyed myself 
so much that I stayed on and on and only realized how 
late it was when the husband came in from down town. 
The first greeting the wife gave him was: “Did you go 
by the laundry to get a clean shirt? You know you 
haven’t one in the house—and we are dining with Mrs, 
Astor to-night and going on to the opera afterwards.” 
He whistled in consternation, rushed off to the tele- 
phone and returned in a few moments all smiles. He 
had borrowed a clean shirt from a friend who had also 
invited them to go to the dinner in their motor. 

I went away with the feeling that they were the 
nicest, simplest, friendliest people I had met for a long 


[211 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


time—no lugs, no pretentiousness, nothing to hide, and 
yet had a position that so many others would have 
given everything they possessed to obtain. But of course 
these others would have been ashamed of the location 
of their house, would have gone to no end of pains to 
keep any one from knowing they were short of clean 
shirts and would have felt disgraced at having a guest 
find their child playing in the reception room. 

Bar Harbor offered me one of my first opportunities 
of meeting members of the leisure class of America— 
if we have such a thing; and also furnished me with 
glimpses of some of the tragedies that go on in the 
midst of this class. There were many people there who 
were received and went out on the most intimate terms 
with the summer colony but who, when they returned 
to New York for the winter, were dropped like hot 
cakes. Being of the hard-working class, I found great 
fun and oftentimes bitter disillusionment in observing 
the dramas going on about me; yet I always had the 
feeling that those who made good in society deserved 
it—just as the artist does who makes his reputation in 

the world of art. Perhaps every success in life is made 
up of the same ingredients, no matter if the struggle 
be in the direction of the fine arts, finance, society or 
any other human effort. 

My mission at Bar Harbor was not to study the vary- 
ing phases of American social life; it was to build a 
house for Miss Archbold—a house which was originally 
intended to be a sort of summer bungalow to cost about 


[212 | 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


six thousand dollars. That it ended in being an Italian 
villa and cost one hundred thousand dollars was not 
entirely my fault—though I’m sure if I told this story 
and then asked for a commission to build a house I 
would have very few applicants. You can’t change a 
bungalow to an Italian villa without changing the cost 
considerably. This was my one and only adventure in 
architecture and it taught me a great deal about the 
methods and mistakes that we are now making in 
America. We are building more houses than any other 
country in the world to-day and the future beauty and 
distinction of America depend a great deal upon what we 
accomplish during this century. 

After Miss Archbold had definitely changed her idea 
about having a bungalow, I went to work modeling a 
sketch for a villa. We were both at Giverny at the 
time and had great fun designing rooms and terraces 
and adapting Italian ideas to American landscape. 
When the model was finished I asked a Beaux Arts 
architectural student to come out to make working 
drawings for building the villa at Bar Harbor later on. 
I had had no architectural training and did not feel 
equipped to go on with the practical execution of the 
model and for this reason wished to turn the whole thing 
over to a real architect. We three, Miss Archbold, the 
architect and I, spent several rather hectic weeks over 
that little plaster model. The architect wished to change 
the whole scheme and make a regulation Beaux Arts 
American country house out of it, which no doubt would 


[213] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


have been a very good solution of the whole affair— 
but Miss Archbold stuck firmly to the model and would 
allow no changes to be made. She said she wanted and 
would have a house different from all the others at Bar 
Harbor. Finally the architect went off very cross, 
saying that no honest architect would undertake to 
execute the wretched model as it was entirely childish. 
I was feeling rather uncertain about it myself after 
those weeks of wrangling and would have urged Miss 
Archbold to give it up if it had not been for a small 
incident which happened just before the architect re- 
turned to Paris. He and I were strolling through the 
village on the eve of his departure when we both 
stopped to admire a little church perched up on the side 
of the road. 3 

“What makes that little building so perfectly fasci- 
nating?” J asked him. 

“The arrangement of the windows, 
promptly. 

Now, no two of those windows were the same size 
and none of them were on the same level—which was 
exactly his complaint against my little model of a 
house. I made no comment, but I thought a great deal 
about this question. If architects grow so enthusiastic 
over the irregularities of windows and lines and roofs 
of foreign houses, why cannot we reproduce the same 
charm in the buildings we erect at home? 

The long discussion ended in our packing up the 
model and taking it back to New York, where we once 


[214] 


39 


he answered 


essatie, 


) 
q 


Photo A. B. Bogart, New York 


LITTLE LADY FROM THE SEA 


One in California. Photo taken in Architectural League exhibit, 
New York. 


Photo A. B. Bogart, New York 


SEATED PAN 
On estate of John D. Rockefeller, Pocantico Hills, New York. 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


more consulted architects and were told by each one that 
the design would have to be completely changed before 
the house could be built. Again we picked up the model 
and this time took it to Bar Harbor in the middle of 
the winter, dug out the village contractor, showed the 
design to him, asked him if he could build it and in 
three days had all arrangements made—at least the 
most important arrangement to us, which consisted of 
finding a man who was willing to undertake the con- 
struction. 

I hardly had a moment to do any sculpture that 
winter in New York, so occupied was I in working over 
drawings which the contractor kept sending down to 
me for consideration and correction—there were three 
hundred and seventy-five in all—and asking for things 
that were at first quite incomprehensible to me and 
which I had to puzzle over by the hour, often ending in 
taking the train to Bar Harbor to see what he meant 
and talk the questions over on the spot. 

By summer the house was done—by hook or crook— 
and in spite of Beaux Arts students people say that it 
has charm, no matter what its architectural defects may 
be. It really seems that if any one wants a house that 
expresses himself and cannot secure an architect who has 
a deserved reputation, the thing to do is to make his 
own design and then get the village contractor to work 
it out for him. With such a system America would 
soon be as full of local color as Normandy or Brittany. 
At any rate, we wouldn’t be continually bored with 


[215] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


so many impersonal, perfectly correct, cold houses 
as are formally standing about our delightful land- 
scape. 

My first “one-man show” in New York was held in 
the Starr galleries. I had brought back from Paris a 
good many pieces of work, among which were my 
Diana, the Fighting Boys, Young Pan, the Little Lady 
from the Sea and the Rockefeller fountain; and it 
was with many thrills and much anxiety that I over- 
looked the placing of these statues which were to stand 
the grilling of a New York audience. I had fully de- 
termined to stay away from the exhibit when it was 
opened, but self-interest got the better of me and I was 
promptly in the galleries early on the morning of the 
opening. It seemed hours before any one appeared. I 
wandered about disconsolately, feeling more and more 
certain that no one in New York was interested in my 
special brand of sculpture. Then, in the midst of my 
deep gloom, I saw the head salesman enter the galleries 
with a lady who, judging from the deference paid her, 
was some one of great importance. I hid behind a 
Colonial clock and watched her pass from statue to 
statue, examining each one carefully with raised lor- 
gnette. The salesman stood at a respectful distance and 
once, finding himself near enough to me not to be over- 
heard by the lady, whispered that she was Mrs. So-and- 
So and quite capable of buying the whole collection 
without giving it a thought. 

[216] 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


“But I don’t want her to buy the whole collection 
without giving it a thought,” I whispered back. 

He held up a warning hand and hurried towards the 
lady, who was showing symptoms of rendering a verdict. 

“Tve seen Miss Scudder’s Frog Fountain in the Met- 
ropolitan,” she said with the accent and solemnity of 
an oracle. “I have also seen her Boy and Fish.” After 
having made her position—at least her knowledge of 
my work—dquite clear, she raised her lorgnette for fur- 
ther inspection. ‘“Yes—lI think J’ll take this charming 
figure. It will look well in my garden. How soon can 
you send it to me?” | 

The business of ordering finally got through, the lady 
cast a last glance about the room and then went towards 
the door followed by the bowing salesman. 

“IT am very much interested in the work of young 
artists,” she said as a sort of last pronouncement. ‘But 
one must be very careful about watching them. Some- 
times one finds they progress and fail in most unex- 
pected places. Now—take Miss Scudder for instance. 
She has undoubtedly made great progress with her 
figures—but she has gone off on her fish.” 

Incidents like this make it almost compulsory for an 
artist to put his work in the hands of agents. The per- 
sonal contact may sometimes prove disastrous. If that 
very rich purchaser had seen my grin she would have 
countermanded her order at once, I’m sure. In fact, it 
is much better for many reasons for the artist to let his 


[217] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


work stand by itself and not try to force the personal 
equation. Many artists think they must mingle with 
prominent people in order to get commissions. This 
may be quite true for portrait painters, but for the 
sculptor such contacts mean nothing. If a sculptor’s 
work is good it will be recognized, though it may take 
a long time. 

When my exhibition at Starr’s had closed, I deliv- 
ered the figure I had exhibited there and which had 
been designed especially for the Rockefeller garden, to 
the estate on the Hudson and soon after went up there 
to see it placed. I took along a friend with me, always 
finding it rather dismal to inspect my own creations 
without a sympathetic presence. One’s clients are not 
always necessarily sympathetic. We stood a long time 
before the rustic grotto where my seated Pan appeared 
very happily installed; in fact he looked as though he 
had been there for ages. When I turned away, feeling 
that everything was all right, I had a very distinct 
longing to know if it meant anything to, or pleased, 
the extraordinary man who had ordered it and whom 
I had never seen. We were walking back through the 
extensive grounds—having been obliged to leave the 
car at the gate as none were admitted to the estate 
without a special permit—when there suddenly ap- 
peared over a little hill a party of golfers. It seems 
that we had inadvertently passed near one of the 
greens. We stopped until a drive had been made by 
an old gentleman, very lithe and active, closely fol- 

[218] 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


lowed by two friends and a group of plain-clothes men, 
and then waited for the party to go on. As the group 
passed closely to us I recognized Mr. Rockefeller from 
photographs I had seen of him; and I was very much 
surprised when I saw him turn from his path and come 
towards me with outstretched hand and one of the 
pleasantest smiles I have ever seen—one which news- 
papers and cameras seem never to record. 

“Aren't you Miss Scudder?’ he asked, shaking my 
hand warmly. “I suppose you’ve come to see how your 
Pan looks in my garden. I am delighted with the little 
figure; and I am so much indebted to you for helping 
to make the grotto beautiful.” 

I had always heard that Mr. Rockefeller was a hard, 
cold, unapproachable sort of person—rather a dragon, 
in fact—and had been relieved that all the business 
connected with my work had been carried on with his 
architect, but my meeting with him wiped out such 
erroneous impressions. As I stood there talking to him 
I found myself wishing all my clients were as nice as 
he was. 

Most people who buy sculpture seem to feel that 
when they have paid the sculptor for doing the work 
they havé no further obligations towards him, at least 
no reason in the world for telling him that his work has 
been satisfactory or given any pleasure. I have often 
wanted to tell them that each time we sell a bronze or 
a marble we are selling a part of our personality and 
that it would be a great joy to have the purchaser of 


[219] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


the work, the one who is going to live with it the rest 
of his life, say something about it. Of course some do 
this, write nice letters and are most sympathetic, but the 
majority appear to have no more feeling about it, no 
more obligations towards the artist, than they would 
have towards the man who delivers them the coal that 
is going to keep them warm for the winter. I suppose 
it is quite natural not to think of thanking the man 
who delivers the coal which is going to make your house 
comfortable; so why bother about thanking the artist 
who tries to make your surroundings more beautiful? 
Probably we all expect too much. At any rate I was 
not expecting anything at all that day in the Pocantico 
Hills garden and it is probably for that reason that 
whenever I hear the name of Rockefeller I immediately 
think of a delightful old gentleman who showed appre- 
ciation of my work in words that have lingered so 
pleasantly in my memory. 

A little studio I took in Fortieth Street during one of 
my visits to New York became a sort of rendezvous for 
a circle of interesting people. I took it to get away 
from hotel life, and though it was the simplest place 
imaginable—a studio, room, bath and kitchenette—it 
was in a way the setting for an extremely brilliant 
group. About this time I had learned to make coffee 
in the so-called Southern style and there was always a 
quantity of it on hand at tea time. Some one said she 
always knew when she had turned the corner into my 
street from the almost overpowering scent of coffee and 

[220] 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


plasteline that emanated from my studio. This period 
in my career shows how easily an artist, when he has 
once begun to make friends, can almost without know- 
ing it become swamped in a group that makes life very 
attractive but can also ruin him for any really creative 
work. It was due to this group and to mere chance 
that I got started on a foolish road that absorbed all 
my time and attention for many months. Marjorie 
Curtis—now Mrs. John Chadbourne—was spending an 
afternoon with me when, suddenly quite enthusiastic 
over the striking beauty of her head, I began a little 
terra cotta bust of her. She came in the next after- 
noon to sit for me again and several of her friends 
dropped in. The little terra cotta head was admired 
and before the afternoon was gone every one in the 
studio said she wanted me to do her in the same way. 
I laughed, as I had only done it for my own pleasure 
and not professionally; but when Mrs. John Carpenter 
said she would postpone her departure for Chicago in 
order to give me sittings, I submitted and from that 
moment entered upon a rather hectic series of little 
heads. Linda Lee Thomas came next among: the 
beauties I did; then followed Mrs. Newbold Leroy 
Edgar, Mrs. James Eustice—now the Marquise de 
Polignac, Mrs. Benjamin Guinness and a number of 
others. The terra cotta heads had suddenly become the 
fashion. Each sitter brought his or her friends and the 
little studio became so crowded and stifling with the 
scent of coffee and plasteline that it was almost unbear- 


[221] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


able. Anne Morgan and Elisabeth Marbury joined 
the habitués and introduced cooncan among those who 
were not at the moment having their heads perpetuated 
in terra cotta. J began to feel exactly like a dentist; 
appointments overlapped; and my little heads, which 
I enjoyed doing at first, began to lose their charm for 
me. 

I was already on the point of throwing the whole 
thing up when two events showed me quite definitely 
that I was not only being bored but growing very 
nervous besides. The first was when a mother had 
bothered me for weeks to do her child and, when I 
consented, accompanied the child and insisted upon 
measuring every feature just before the little bust 
was finished with her pocket handkerchief. You can 
imagine how futile this was when you know that the 
heads were only six inches high and of course much 
smaller than life. The second incident was a little 
more lurid. A Wall Street financier had fallen into the 
habit of dropping in at my studio before it became so 
crowded. He was mildly interested in art and I sup- 
pose liked to talk about it quietly with a good strong 
cup of coffee to help along inspiration. When the little 
heads had become such a fad he found the studio en- 
tirely too crowded for his comfort and, though he still 
came often, made no effort to hide his annoyance. One 
afternoon, when he found no place to sit down, he 
showed his irritation to the extent of replying, when 
asked how he liked the head I was doing, that it was 

[222 | 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


nice enough but might just as well be the head of any 
one at all so far as likeness went. 

I have always confessed quite frankly that I hated 
criticism from unprofessional people. This time I par- 
ticularly hated it as a roar of laughter went up from 
the crowd at a moment when I was working on the eyes. 
I threw down my tools, walked straight across to the 
Wall Street financier, took him by the collar of his coat 
in the back with one hand and the lapels in front with 
the other and before he knew what had happened had 
lifted him off his feet and placed him outside the door. 

I was mortified beyond words when I realized how 
far my irritation had carried me—or him, to put it more 
correctly—and I went to extreme lengths later on to 
make it up to him and try to get his friendship back. 
But though he was always polite and showed himself a 
good sport, there were never any more afternoon visits 
on his part to my studio. His friends made it miser- 
able for him for a long time; but my respect for him 
went up tremendously when I heard what he said about 
me, if my name were mentioned in his presence: “Oh, 
yes, Janet Scudder, charming woman and—tremen- 
dously strong.” He was certainly one of the most dis- 
tinguished men I met in New York. His self-control 
was admirable and filled me with envy. 

I was continually being impressed with the versatility, 
variety and delightful qualities of the New York suc- 
cessful business man. Much has been written about the 
New York woman; but so few writers take an interest 


[223] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


in describing our men. I find them stimulating and 
interesting in their extraordinary points of view. They 
do things with a breadth and lavishness thac seem to 
me a throw-back to more picturesque days than we are 
now living in. 

I was particularly lucky one winter when I was oc- 
cupying the top floor studio of Mrs. William Astor 
Chanler’s house in 19th Street—she had very gener- 
ously offered it to me for the few weeks I was to work 
in New York—over the design for the McCormick 
Fountain with Charles Platt, the great country-house 
architect. Mrs. Chanler’s group of friends included the 
most amusing and clever people, particularly the men, 
who knew how to play the game of life perfectly; they 
did things with an extraordinary style and knew better 
than any men of any other nationality I have ever 
known how to give one a good time. 

I was sitting next a man at dinner one night who 
asked me what I thought of the Tango; he said that 
New York was quite topsy-turvy over it and that he 
would like to know whether it appealed to a sculptor or 
not. I was just back from Paris, where it had made 
little impression, none on me, and I asked him what it 
was—something to eat, to see or to wear. He appeared 
shocked at my ignorance and immediately asked if I 
would be in my studio at five o’clock the next day. I 
told him I would and nothing more was said about the 
Tango. 

At five o’clock the next afternoon Mrs. Chanler’s 


[224 ] 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


butler came up to the studio and announced that three 
“persons” were downstairs asking for me. They had not 
given their names and as I did not want to make the 
butler climb downstairs and all the way up again, I told 
him to send them up. I watched the hole made by the 
staircase into the studio with some interest. One by 
one three heads appeared, followed by bodies—two ex- 
tremely dapper-looking young men and a very dressy 
lady. When they reached the studio I bowed and asked 
what they wanted and they replied they had been sent 
‘to dance for Miss Scudder.” For the first time it 
flashed over me that they must have something to do 
with the mysterious word Tango—and I knew now that 
that must be some sort of a dance. 

I asked my strange guests to sit down; then I began 
to roll up the carpets and clear the floor. They made 
no movement to help me, no doubt having reached the 
conclusion that I was some sort of a queer domestic— 
I was wearing a sculptor’s apron—who was making 
preparations for the party. When I had got the floor 
in order and the chairs pushed back, I turned to them 
and said: ‘““Well—I suppose you might as well begin.” 

They all looked at me and each other in amazement. 

“What!” the leader said. “Dance here now! 
Where’s the party?” 

“T am,” I replied meekly, by this time quite overcome 
with embarrassment at the whole proceeding. 

They consulted together and then the musician went 
to the piano, began playing and Maurice and Florence 


[225 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Walton danced for me alone throughout the hour for 
which, I afterwards learned, they must have been paid 
a fantastic sum. 

Another man who showed a talent for doing things 
in the grand style was Mr. John Trask, who was in 
charge of the art exhibit of the San Francisco Exposi- 
tion. I had begun to wonder if I were going to be 
asked to send any of my work to that exposition, when 
I received a letter from Mr. Trask asking me to dine 
with him one night at the Knickerbocker Hotel. He 
said nothing about his reason for asking me to dine, nor 
did he mention it during the long and very elaborate 
dinner. It was only after the coffee had been served 
and he had lighted a cigarette for me and a long black 
cigar for himself that he considered the moment pro- 
pitious. Having played the host to perfection, he was 
now prepared to assume the role of clever business man. 
Out came notebook and pencil and a direct question: 

“And now, Miss Scudder, let’s get down to business. 
What are you going to let me have for the exposition?” 

“Anything you want,’ I answered promptly. 

Mr. Trask thought this over a few moments; then, 
without further comment, he quickly made out a list in 
his notebook of ten of my bronzes. 

“But how under the sun can I get ten bronzes ready 
for you?” I exclaimed. 

“That can be arranged. J have been to your agents, 
the Gorham Company, this morning. I have also inter- 


[226 | 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


viewed your bronze foundry. If we make a sufficient 
effort the thing can be put through.” 

And it was—just as he had planned it. If he had 
written me a letter and left the matter to correspondence 
I’m sure he would have had only about half the things 
he wanted. With such methods the New York, and 
for that matter all American, business men succeed. 
They make up their minds what they want and go 
after it. 

During that visit to New York I had a little excursion 
into political life, due to the fact that Mrs. Norman 
Whitehouse asked me one night across her dinner table 
what I was doing for woman’s rights. 

“Well, Vera,” I said, slightly embarrassed for an 
answer, “you know I am a sculptor and haven’t much 
time to think about my own or any one else’s rights.” 

Her scorn was scathing and after a fiery grilling from 
her I felt entirely crushed—which was only the begin- 
ning of what she intended to do to me. The next 
morning she drove me down to Macdougal Alley to a 
meeting of the Art Committee Section of the “Woman’s 
Rights Organization” and stood over me while I was 
made a member and given certain duties to perform. 
After this her interest never flagged. If she saw signs 
of slackness or lessening of attention, she immediately 
carried me off to luncheon or dinner and began ham- 
mering at me again. Through her influence I became a 
fairly active suffragette. During one of the great pa- 


[227] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


rades given at that time, I had charge of the art group, 
which of course interested me particularly, in spite of 
the fact that walking up Fifth Avenue in white clothes 
on a bitterly cold day was calculated to lessen any one’s 
belief in any sort of rights—except those of a warm and 
snug hearth. 

Another delightful person at that time in New York 
was Mrs. Benjamin Guinness, who had a charming old 
house in Washington Square, where she entertained the 
most clever people of New York and many foreign 
visitors. Her Tuesday parties were the most entertain- 
ing affairs I have ever attended. I never missed one of 
them if I could help it. Her salon was extraordinarily 
cosmopolitan and one met there people from all corners 
of the world. It seems to me that New York suffered 
a great loss when Mrs. Guinness closed her house and 
returned to London. I particularly feel the loss as hers 
was one of the few houses where I knew that my niche 
was always waiting for me. Perhaps this was due to 
her English traits; once a friend, an English person is 
always a friend; travel and absence do not seem to erase 
pleasant memories. 

While these different circles and personalities and 
thoroughly delightful people were forming a part of 
my life each time I made a visit to or spent a year in 
New York, I had the feeling that they invariably car- 
ried me a little away from my real work. In a way it 
was most natural, for I always enjoyed myself im- 
mensely, and the experience had a good deal to do with 

[228 ] 


FRIENDLY NEW YORKERS 


broadening my interests—which is always valuable to 
an artist. One can’t remain eternally locked in one’s 
studio always at work. A break in training is quite 
salutary; it does every one good. But too many peo- 
ple, too many amusements, too many interests, invari- 
ably pall on me after a certain time. 

My exits from New York are usually much more pre- 
cipitate than my arrivals there. When I find I have 
had just as much of it as I can possibly assimilate— 
probably too much for real assimilation—I go back to 
France and settle down in the old rut in Paris. New 
York is the most stimulating place in the world and the 
friendliest—after you have made your success—but I 
don’t believe it is the best place in which to do creative 
work. It furnishes too much inspiration, too much ma- 
terial, too many suggestions; in order to digest all it 
gives one and produce, it seems to me an absolute neces- 
sity to get away from it. 

Pauses come now and then, even in the somewhat 
restless life of an artist—pauses in which one looks about 
and takes stock of what one has done, what there is 
to do next. One of these pauses came to me once when 
I was in New York. I had just finished a large com- 
mission for which I had been very well paid; in fact 
the whole year had been successful and my bank ac- 
count had increased most satisfactorily. I had begun 
to make investments and everything had turned out 
well. At last I had, even without working, an income. 
Magic word! I took a long breath and smiled as no 


[229 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


one in the world knows how to smile except those who 
have started with nothing and make by force of will 
and determination enough to live on comfortably the 
rest of their days. It is a wonderful thought—for a 
little while. Then—presto!—the old driving force of 
the past comes rushing back and you realize that, after _ 
all, that is not what you have been working for. You 
have been working for the joy of creating—adding 
something to the beauty of the world. I don’t believe 
this is what so many call artistic temperament. Other 
workers have it just as much as artists. Once into the 
swing of the life we have cut out for ourselves there is 
very little let-up. Mr. Bok said there was a time to 
stop and rest and let others go ahead; yet he does not 
seem to have made an entire success of his theory. His 
endeavors have only shifted; he is apparently working 
as hard as ever. 

At any rate, I did pause and look about me and put 
numerous questions to myself. And the question that 
took first place above all others was: “Where am I 
going to really settle down and live? Where do I want 
my home to be? Shall it be New York or Paris? or 
where?” 


[230] 


FISH GIRL SHELL FOUNTAIN 


In Sabin home, Shinnecock Hills, On estate of Mrs. Harold McCor- 
Long Island. mick (Edith Rockefeller), Lake 


Forest, Illinois. 


Wide W orld Photo—© N. Y. Times Co. 
JANET SCUDDER IN HER STUDIO, PARIS 


VII 
WANDERINGS 


As I have said, I have always found New York too 
exciting a place to produce my best work there. There 
is so much to do, there are so many amusements, so 
many surprises, so many adventures and so much tele- 
phoning that concentration for me is quite impossible. 
Affairs move too fast in New York; vital changes take 
place in people’s lives often in a few hours; one may 
be as poor as a church mouse one moment and as rich 
as Croesus the next. It is all extremely exhilarating— 
which makes it one of the most fascinating places in the 
world to go to; but for a calm, definite pursuit of an 
idea, I have found Paris a much better place in which 
to work. In Paris there are few changes; one always 
finds one’s niche there when one returns—no matter 
how long one may have been away. In New York one 
seems to begin life all over again upon each arrival. 

I have had my present studio in Paris for ten 
years; and when I return from trips home I invariably 
find the same concierge to greet me, the same little res- 
taurants near by, everything the same and always a 
pleasant greeting on all sides. I have employed the 
same coiffeur in Paris for years and when I return after 
a long absence the whole family comes forth to greet 


[231] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


me. Having been in Paris during the war, my relations 
with the people in the Latin Quarter are very close. If 
I stayed away twenty years, I feel perfectly sure I 
would find my niche awaiting me when I got back. In 
a way it has something very closely akin to the person- 
ality and intimacy of small-town life. 

There is sometimes a certain expressed distrust on the 
part of tourists in France towards the French people. I 
always resent this distrust, for years spent among them 
have convinced me that there is no foundation for lack 
of confidence. I have had a great deal of experience 
with them and I have never once felt that I had been 
deceived or cheated by any one of them. In their busi- 
ness dealings they are perfectly correct and honest; their 
spoken word is just as good as their written word and 
can absolutely be depended upon. 

In looking back over the years I have spent in Paris 
I find myself particularly remembering the time I lived 
in a little house in the Rue de la Grande Chaumiere. 
I was there three’ continuous years—perhaps the most 
profitable and interesting years of my career. I worked 
incessantly, all day long and sometimes late into the 
night, and I was happy all the. time. I often think 
that I was particularly fortunate in being in sympa- 
thetic surroundings at the period when my productive 
energies were at their height. Every one of us has a 
series of years like that, years when his flame burns 
brightly, years that are an accumulation of everything 
that has gone before and years that actually model 


[232] 


WANDERINGS 


the future. To some this period comes early in youth, 
to others late in life. It was my experience to hit a 
happy average. The poverty and struggle and sadness 
of my early days were all left behind; I was living in 
a present that was filled with energy and ambition; and 
the future looked comfortingly bright. Yes—that was 
a very wonderful time. 

The little house had two floors. On the top one was 
a studio with bedroom behind it; on the street floor was 
a sitting-room with kitchen and maid’s room adjoining. 
My sleeping quarters were absolutely remote from all 
noises and my studio was so situated that I could get 
up in the middle of the night and work without dis- 
turbing any one. I have never had surroundings that 
suited me so perfectly. The house was not big enough 
to be bothersome and yet it was quite comfortable for 
living purposes. 

Once settled there, I decided to put aside each Satur- 
day as a day of rest and one on which to receive my 
friends. In this way I felt that I could safeguard my 
time and still not lead the life of a hermit. It is ex- 
traordinary how many Americans pass through Paris. 
The well-known motto that says all roads lead to Rome 
should be changed in these more modern days to Paris. 
Does any one who goes to Europe consider for a mo- 
ment not passing some time there! 

Those Saturday afternoons proved very delightful 
affairs, though I must say the first one was rather a dis- 
appointment. JI made great preparations for it, prac- 


[233] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


tically bought out an entire pastry shop and filled the 
little sitting-room with flowers. Then I sat down and 
waited for the crowd to pour in. Hours passed. I 
nibbled at the mass of cakes and wandered about dis- 
consolately. About six o’clock the bell rang. A pa- 
thetic old maid who lived for her tea was shown in; 
but even with her very good appetite no impression 
was made on that day’s output of the pastry shop. 
The following Saturday was not much better; only 
three or four people appeared; but before the winter was 
over my living-room was filled each week with all sorts 
of people from all sorts of places. Two Danish friends 
came often and contributed very passionate music on 
the violin and piano—Eva Mudocci and Bella Edvards; 
Yorksa, formerly of the Odéon, recited and brought all 
her theatrical friends to do the most entertaining stunts; 
Madame X, a writer, who later amused herself by cut- 
ting her husband up into small pieces and despatching 
him to some foreign country in a trunk, came several 
times. How thrilled we should have been if we had 
known we were associating with a future murderess! 
My Saturdays at home became a funny mixture of 
the World and Bohemia; the World a bit frightened 
by extraordinary “‘types’; Bohemia offish but thrilled 
to see the World so closely. Mrs. Stanford White 
never failed to turn up—that charming woman so 
adored by her friends; Henry Adams, whom I had 


known in Washington, came often; Gertrude Stein, the ' 
discoverer of Matisse and the inventor of a new litera- 


[234] 


arya 


WANDERINGS 


ture; Teddy Bean, the clever New York writer; Gor- 
don Craig, who has done more for reforming stage 
settings than any one else; Madame Maeterlinck— 
Georgette Le Blanc; Mabel Dodge—to and fro from 
her Florentine ghost-haunted villa; Mildred Aldrich— 
afterwards so famous for her “Hilltop on the Marne’’; 
Robert Bacon, then our ambassador in Paris; and many 
others well known or unknown as the case might be. 
I always went to bed after those Saturday afternoons 
with my head buzzing with new ideas and fragments of 
expressed opinions that were stimulating and suggestive. 

I enjoyed particularly, during those days, having Mr. 
and Mrs. Bacon and Mrs. White dine with me in my 
little house. We were a perfectly happy combination. 
Mr. Bacon had been interested enough in my work to 
buy one of my fountains and place it in the hall of the 
Embassy, which pleased me immensely. I was proud 
of having my work decorate one of our foreign mis- 
sions; and I have since thought that it would be an 
excellent idea if all our missions abroad had examples 
of the work of American artists in them. The French 
always furnish their embassies with Gobelin tapestries 
and Sévres porcelains, which serve the double purpose 
of making the surroundings very handsome and at the 
same time showing to the world the artistic productions 
of France. 

One Fourth of July, Mrs. White and I went with all 
the other good Americans to pay our respects to our 
ambassador. We stood in line with the crowd and shook 


[235] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


hands formally when our time came and were just pass- 
ing on when Mr. Bacon whispered to us to come back 
again. We immediately got in line again, were once 
more presented, talked as long as we dared and passed 
on for the second time. We kept this up the entire 
afternoon, being greeted each time by the ambassador 
and Mrs. Bacon as though they had never seen us before. 

Robert Bacon represented to me the perfect type of — 
American man, splendid to look at and of the simplest 
and most charming manners. The last time I saw 
him was at Plattsburg when I went to see my nephew, 
Robbins Conn, in camp. Just as we drove in the gate, 
Mr. Bacon was passing along in his shirt sleeves carry- 
ing a bucket of water in one hand and a sponge in the 
other. He looked like a splendid warrior, in spite of 
the pail and the sponge, and had lost none of his dis- 
tinction since he had discarded the ambassadorial trap- 
pings in which I had first known him. He was most 
kind in helping me find my nephew that day in the 
wilderness of young Americans preparing for war—a 
nephew who later made me prouder of him and his share 
in the fight for the freedom of France than any other 
thing connected with my life. My pride in him had 
begun long before when I had had something to do with 
urging him to come to Paris to study architecture, where 
he made a record as the youngest foreigner to success- 
fully pass his entrance examinations into the Beaux 
Arts; but that was nothing in comparison with my feel- 
ings when he left Plattsburg wearing a little tin medal 


[236] 


WANDERINGS 


which had been given him for sharp shooting. During 
the war he acquired honorable mentions all along the 
way and ended his exploits with the Croix de Guerre 
and the Distinguished Service Cross. He seemed to be 
always in the thick of the fight and yet was only once 
slightly wounded; and now, like all our bravest, he 
keeps his medals locked up in a desk. Why they don’t 
wear them is a mystery to me. ‘If I had medals for 
bravery, I’m sure I should never be seen in public with- 
out having the rewards sparkling on my chest. 

While living in the Rue de la Grande Chaumiere, I 
made one of my best friends among the French people— 
a friendship which has increased with the years and 
which has had something to do with the appreciation of 
modern French sculpture in America. Our meeting came 
about in a rather entertaining way. I happened to look 
in at an exhibition one day and came across a little 
bronze, a really superb piece of work representing noth- 
ing more important than a rabbit—but something that 
appealed to me at once as being a very beautiful work 
of art. I bought that rabbit on the spot—the only piece 
of sculpture I have ever bought—and gave my address 
for its delivery at the close of the exhibition. A few 
days later my servant brought a card up to the studio 
—the card of Mademoiselle Jane Poupelet, sculptor of 
my precious rabbit. She explained that she had called 
to have a look at an artist who had bought the work 
of another woman artist. I was very glad her curiosity 
had brought her to me as I was anxious to see more 


[237] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


work by so great a sculptor. Returning her visit almost 
immediately, I found, in her studio in the Rue Dutot, 
a collection of small bronzes that convinced me that 
Mademoiselle Poupelet was one of the most important 
sculptors of our times. 

On my next trip to America I took over with me seven 
of Poupelet’s works, as at that time she was unknown 
in America and I felt that her influence on American 
art would be valuable. I wanted every American 
student of sculpture to have the benefit of studying her 
extraordinary work. I was not disappointed in arousing 
appreciation at once. The Metropolitan Museum bought 
the most important bronze of the collection—“Femme 
a sa toilette’—-and gave it a star place in the Rodin 
Gallery. ‘The remaining six bronzes I sent to the ex- 
hibition at the National Academy. This latter organiza- 
tion accepted one of the bronzes—a tiny duck; and re- 
fused the other five! Some enterprising journalist got 
hold of the astounding information that Poupelet had 
been bought one day by the Metropolitan Museum and 
refused the next by the Academy; and from that moment 
my telephone began to ring and continued to ring for 
three days and nights—all on the subject of Poupelet. 
Columns were given her by the newspapers, which in- 
cluded interviews with the Academy jury artists who 
had refused her work, interviews with me and pictures 
of the bronzes—all of which were of course immediately 
sold. I even went so far as to break into print myself 
and wrote an article in which I said that Poupelet was 


[238] 


WANDERINGS 


the most original artist of our day and that “she has 
not begged, borrowed or stolen from any nation or any 
school of art.’ When this article appeared, the type- 
setter printed my statement to read—“‘she has begged, 
borrowed and stolen from every nation and every school 
of art.’ My fury with the editor drove the poor fel- 
low into giving Poupelet pages of free advertising for 
weeks. 

_ Added to all this publicity was another windfall for 
Poupelet. One of the officials connected with the 
Academy had been very much preoccupied with the fact 
that no precautions were ever taken to prevent loss by 
theft during an exhibition. He wanted the small bronzes 
wired to their pedestals and the small pictures wired to 
the walls. But the gentleman could get no one to listen 
to his fears. Finally, he had the bright idea of stealing 
a bronze himself just to show the Academy how easily 
a work of art could be lifted from the galleries and how 
correct he was in his arguments. 

His choice for this demonstration fell upon Poupe- 
let’s duck. Again a furore of newspaper excitement 
with a picture of the now famous duck in all the jour- 
nals! The poor gentleman who had caused all the 
turmoil got very much confused by the hornets’ nest 
he had stirred up, the duck was secretly replaced and 
the amateur thief only confessed his crime months later. 
In the meantime Poupelet’s name was on every one’s 
lips. Her reputation was made in America. 

I do not mean to suggest that Poupelet’s work would 


[239] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


not have been acknowledged and appreciated eventually. 
Nothing really good ever fails to be recognized in our 
' country. MacMonnies once said that all one had to do 
' to achieve success in America was to produce the best. 
' What that best happened to be did not matter; it might 
just be a button; but if it were the best button that had 
ever been made New York would very soon find it out 
and give it success. Of course it is very likely that it 
would have taken very much longer to introduce the 
work of Poupelet into the hearts of my country people 
if the Academy had not lent its assistance so gen- 
erously. At any rate I sailed back to France with the 
great satisfaction of having awakened the interest of 
my own people in the artist whom I considered the best 
sculptor in France. 

Being possessed with the spirit of my roving ances- 
tors, I have periodically pulled up stakes and gone off 
with my furniture looking for new homes—though, in 
the back of my mind is always the certainty that I will 
return eventually to the Latin Quarter. It seems the 
natural end of every journey I make. Once I decided 
nothing would please me so well as living on a farm; 
and I happened to be driving through Provence at the 
time this decision reached climax in the midst of a 
landscape which is admitted to be one of the most beau- 
tiful in the world. To make my decision absolutely 
definite, my friend, Mrs. Lane, who was motoring with 
me, agreed that nothing could be more perfect than to 
look out every day upon a country as beautiful as that 


[240] 


WANDERINGS 


of Provence. We bought a farm near Aix and moved 
from Paris with all our furniture and the intention of 
living there happily ever after. It took us a surpris- 
ingly short time to realize that landscapes are all very 
well in their way—but that people are much more 
exhilarating. We looked our full upon the lovely scene 
that stretched away from our house; but at night, when 
there was not a single light to be seen, our longing for 
friends became tragic. At the end of five months the 
Latin Quarter called so insistently that we sold the 
farm and returned to our happy stamping ground. 

I went even further in my wanderings once and de- 
cided—inspired by an English novel in which the de- 
lightful vagabond hero lived in a van and wandered 
about happily from place to place—to live in a tent. 
I was sure this was an inspiration that I had been 
awaiting for years. The idea appealed to me as being 
absolutely perfect. I went straight out and bought a 
tent before the inspiration had time to cool. It was 
quite easy to find—the shop in New York appeared to 
be filled with them—and before the day was over I 
had ordered one that promised all the comforts of home 
with none of the disadvantages. There was a wooden 
floor, also there were real windows made of wire mos- 
quito netting, there were nice little curtains that could 
be pulled up and down; and as a finishing touch I had 
a skylight made of isinglass which turned my tent into 
a studio as well as living quarters. The accessories that 
went with tent life kept me occupied for days; they 


[241 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


were quite the most fascinating purchases I have ever 
made. 

One of the most delightful sides of tent life—in pros- 
pect—was that it was going to make my visits to my 
friends in America that summer so simple. Instead of 
bothering them about putting aside a room for me or 
timing my arrival to fit in with the departure of some 
other guest, I would just ask for a small space on their 
lawns, have the tent sent ahead to be put up and thus 
be entirely independent. But for some strange reason 
my friends didn’t take to the idea at all. They invited 
me to visit them as usual in the summer, but none of 
them included an invitation for my tent. 

As a matter of fact my tent life ended more abraode 
than my farm experience. The only time I got a chance 
to use the idea was just after I had finished doing my 
little Victory, for which Irene Castle had posed. I 
wanted to do another figure of her, and she was leav- 
ing town for her Long Island home. When I sug- 
gested that I bring along my tent and do the work 
there she agreed heartily, saying to bring along anything 
I wanted to. I had at last found some one who was 
not opposed to my tent. I had it shipped over to Long 
Island and sent along my studio boy and a man to help 
him put it up. I waited three whole, very impatient, 
days for them to return and tell me everything was 
ready for me. It seems they had found it a somewhat 
difficult proposition to get the tent up. At any rate 
I was very happy that my idea was at last going to 


[242] 


WANDERINGS 


be realized, packed several valises and took the train to 
Port Washington. Imagine my disappointment when 
I arrived and found the Castles had made all arrange- 
ments for me to live in the house and would not allow 
me to occupy the tent. However, I insisted upon using 
it as a studio—for just about two minutes. The sun 
beating down made it absolutely impossible to remain 
there longer; and the first and only attempt at tent life 
ended with a rush for bathing suits and spending the 
rest of the day in the water trying to cool off. On the 
whole I suppose my friends were right; tents are not 
satisfactory for guests. 

Many sculptors and painters believe that Rome 
offers the perfect residence for artists. Germans and 
Russians and Scandinavians usually cling to this belief, 
perhaps because of the brilliant sunshine which is such 
a novelty to them, rather than the stimulating surround- 
ings of past glories. But though Italy periodically 
calls to me—there are times when no other place will 
satisfactorily meet my needs—I have not often been able 
to live there contentedly for a long time. Though once, 
fed up with too much work and too many people and 
too much telephone in New York, I fled to Florence 
and spent a whole year there. In all that time, I ac- 
complished only one piece of work—my Tortoise Boy. 
One piece of work in a whole year is entirely too little 
for a sculptor to produce. | 

At another time I spent several months in Rome, 
going there primarily for the purpose of having the 


[243] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


fountain I had done for the Harold McCormick garden 
cast in bronze. I enjoyed the months there immensely 
—due in great measure to Mabel McGinnis, one of the 
most delightful women I know, who has since sailed off 
into diplomacy as the wife of Norval Richardson. She 
was an ardent lover of Rome and knew it perhaps even 
better than the Romans themselves—an excellent play- 
mate for a newcomer. After a period of sight-seeing, 
I rented a studio and began to model. It may have 
been the overpowering effect of too much beauty all 
about me or it may have been the discouraging atmos- 
phere of the bitterly cold studio; at any rate work was 
impossible. I actually did nothing. 

An enormous stove burning wood gave out absolutely 
no heat; and the model, all the time she was posing 
for a nude statue, wore a voluminous cloak wrapped 
tightly about her. If I were modeling a leg, she would 
carefully draw back a fold of the cloak and display an 
inch or two of her leg; if I were working on the neck, 
she would turn down her collar grudgingly; in fact, 
whenever she got up on the model stand, she would ask 
anxiously: “What part of me do you want to see to- 
day?” TI literally modeled her inch by inch and never 
saw what she looked like in the altogether. I came to 
the conclusion that the only time to work successfully 
with a Roman model was when the weather was so hot 
that I couldn’t work at all. 

By the time I had lived three consecutive years in my 
little house in the Rue de la Grande Chaumiére my 


[244] 


~ WANDERINGS 


quarters began to grow somewhat cramped—owing to 
the plaster casts and armatures and all the parapher- 
nalia that a sculptor invariably collects. Then, also, 
an old stable in the street was pulled down to make 
room for the “tin” church which was being built just 
behind the Girls’ Club. With the destruction of the 
stable, an army of rats were cast out upon the world. 
Of course they had to find other quarters and with one 
accord they decided upon my house. My love of ani- 
mals has never carried me to the extent of cultivating 
rats; and when they descended upon me—the largest I 
have ever seen, quite as big as my dog—lI knew that 
something had to be done. In connection with this 
alarming situation was the fact that my lease was 
about up. The outcome of the episode was that I 
decided I wanted a house in the country near Paris. 

I asked my bronze founder one day if he knew of 
anything that would suit me. In a few days he appeared, 
said he had found just the place for me and suggested 
that I drive out with him at once to Ville d’Avray and 
see the property. The house was quite charming, XVIII 
Century, set in a garden with a wall round it and 
with a studio a short distance from the house. There 
were enormous trees on the property and a little stream 
of water falling over rocks into a series of basins. I was 
enchanted with the surroundings, thought I had found 
the ideal spot and moved out there that fall—leaving 
the rats in the Rue de la Grande Chaumiére to the mercies 
of another tenant. 


[245 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


After living in Ville d’Avray for a few months—it 
is only about half an hour out of Paris—I decided to 
buy the place; and on Friday, June 13, 1913, I took 
over the titles and became an owner of property—the 
first piece of land and the first house that I had ever 
called my own. It is a rather wonderful experience, 
after you have struggled along for many years without 
anything, to find yourself actually living in a house 
and on ground that is registered in your name and for 
which you have paid out of your own earnings. It gives 
a sort of permanent feeling that nothing else in the world 
quite equals. And in Ville d’Avray, I had the added 
pleasure of looking out upon those lovely shady ave- 
nues and woods and sylvan perspectives that Corot has 
reproduced in almost every one of his paintings. But, 
unfortunately for me, my life at Ville d’Avray was 
never entirely satisfactory. Evidently there were too 
many thirteens and too much Friday present on the 
day of the purchase—as was shown later on. 

Undoubtedly the war had a great deal to do with my 
continued wanderings; and like so many who were in 
Europe at the time, the holocaust broke upon me entirely 
unexpectedly. I had returned from America to France 
in the early spring, meaning to spend the summer in 
Ville d’Avray. The long, damp winter had been par- 
ticularly hard on my old house and I found, on opening 
it, that many repairs were necessary. Instead of enjoy- 
ing guests, whom I had invited to stop with me, I was 
surrounded by masons and plumbers for weeks and 


[246 | 


YOUNG PAN FOUNTAIN 


This was done for Robert Bacon when he was Ambassador to France. 
Now on estate of Mrs. Robert Bacon. Photo taken in American 
Embassy in Paris. 


Photo A. B. Bogart, New York 
VICTORY STATUERTTE 


WANDERINGS 


weeks. By July, when the work was finished, I was so 
exhausted with the noise and confusion of workmen 
that I decided to move into Paris, having found a good 
tenant for my house who wanted to take it over at 
once. A curious loneliness had settled upon me at 
Ville d’Avray—perhaps a premonition of the oncoming 
crisis—and when I] found myself safely tucked away in 
the Hotel Foyot with a studio near by in the Rue 
Racine, I had a much more contented feeling than I 
had had in the country. 

A few days after I had got settled in town, I returned 
to Ville d’Avray to work on some unfinished sculpture 
which I had left in the studio there. My tenant’s butler 
told me that his mistress had gone into town to order 

coal for the house as she had heard that it might be 
_ difficult later on to obtain fuel-of any sort, but that she 
intended to come back by noon and hoped that I would 
lunch with her. I went on into the studio, settled down 
to work and remained there for hours without thought 
of time. As I had neither watch nor clock in the 
studio, I had no idea that it was getting late until I 
began to feel hungry and wonder why the butler did 
not come out and announce luncheon. I looked up at 
the skylight and saw that the sun was touching it. 
—which meant that it must be about three o’clock. 
Then I decided to go to the house and find out what 
was the matter. A scene of utter confusion met me 
there. Trunks had been pulled down from the store 
room and all the servants were rushing about in the 


[247] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


greatest excitement. My tenant’s maid was trying to 
give directions about the packing, and in the mad excite- 
ment very little was being accomplished. I gazed at 
the scene in bewilderment, not having the slightest idea 
what it was all about. Instead of finding a well- 
ordered house and a delightful hostess waiting to give 
me a good luncheon, I found everything upside down. 
To increase my amazement, no one paid the slightest 
attention to me as I stood at the door and looked on. 

I finally went towards the hysterical maid, who was 
throwing clothes into a trunk. 

“What on earth is the matter?’ I exclaimed. “And 
where is your mistress?” 

“(Madame has gone to Brittany to join her relatives,” 
she burst forth. ‘She sent me back here to pack her 
trunks as quickly as possible.”’ 

“Is some one il]? 

She stared at me through frightened eyes, then turned 
again to the packing. 

“Why all this haste and confusion?” I insisted upon 
having some sort of an answer. | 

Again she stopped long enough to stare at me. “It 
is the war, mademoiselle.” 

“War! What war? Who is fighting?” 

“France and Germany!” 

It seems incredible that I should not have known that 
we were on the verge of war; but any one who was in 
Europe at that time knows that the bomb was sprung 
in just this unexpected way. No one thought that our 


[248 ] 


WANDERINGS 


existence, which was going on so peacefully and nor- 
mally, could possibly change in this manner over night. 
Of course rumors and uncertainty filled the air, but no 
one—at least no one who was not directly implicated— 
really paid much attention to what was being said in 
the newspapers. We felt so perfectly assured that 
prime ministers and rulers and most of all financiers 
would see that that whole tangle got no further than 
heated discussions. A war was a thing of the past; it 
belonged to the dark ages. 

The maid chattered on with information, telling me 
there would be no more passenger trains from Ville 
d’Avray after six o’clock that afternoon and that, if I 
intended to get anything into Paris, I had better begin 
packing at once. I turned away from her, wholly doubt- 
ful and still thinking all this confusion was unneces- 
sary and exaggerated. However, under the excitement 
of the others, it seemed best to take a few precautions; 
and so I went to work to get together a few things which 
I thought I would take into Paris with me in case some- 
thing actually did happen—a tapestry, some bed linen 
and my silver. Then came the question of carrying my 
baggage to the station. With this in view, still quite 
calm and disposed to treat the whole matter as hys- 
terical, I went out on the road to call a passing fiacre. 
The ominous desertion of the street shocked me. There 
was not a living soul in sight. While I stood there, 
finally convinced that something unusual was happen- 
ing, a cab dashed into the road and came madly towards 


[249] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


me. As it drew near, I recognized the driver, a man 
I had often employed. I waved to him and, when he 
drew up, told him I wanted to go to the station with 
my trunks. He hesitated a few seconds, then sprang 
down, threw my baggage into his cab, waved me into 
the seat and once more resumed his breakneck speed, 
shouting out to me over his shoulder that he had just 
received his call to arms, was to go off to the war that 
night and was leaving his wife and eight children. 
Poor fellow! I never saw him again. 

By this time I was beginning to feel that war was 
really upon us; and once at the station there was much 
more convincing evidence. I found a riot of people with 
luggage there—all hurriedly returning to Paris. While 
I waited for the train, I noticed that a little building 
opposite the station, which had always been closed, was 
now surrounded by men. In the open door a soldier 
stood calling out numbers and handing out to the line 
of men who came up in silent order all sorts of war 
equipment. Guns, uniforms and army boots were being 
rapidly and methodically distributed—and all done with 
a seriousness pregnant with foreboding. 

A strange sight greeted me when [ arrived in Paris 
late that afternoon. When I had left in the morning 
everything had been perfectly tranquil and normal. In 
a few hours everything had changed. As I left the sta- 
tion on foot—it was impossible to find either taxi or 
flacre—the streets were tremendously impressive. Masses 
of people were clamoring for the latest editions of the 


[250] 


WANDERINGS 


evening papers which were just out. The air was filled 
with a veritable whirlwind of newspapers hurtling 
through the air in every direction. Every one grabbed 
at them and the newsboys—tossed about by the crowd— 
threw the papers above the heads of the people on all - 
sides. ‘Then, while I stood looking on at this panic of 
anxiety, a sudden calm settled over the streets. Where 
they had been noisy and filled with mad scrambling a 
few moments before, they were now almost as quiet as 
a tomb. Every living person appeared suddenly to 
have become paralyzed where he stood, as every pair 
of eyes and every mind concentrated on reading the 
ultimatum which meant that it was now absolutely 
necessary to go out and face death for the defense of 
France. 

I always think of those fluttering newspapers when 
any one mentions the beginning of the war. I can still 
see those unfolded sheets—they were only single pages 
—go fluttering through the air like a flock of birds—and 
surely birds of ill omen. 

All that night there was the tramp, tramp, tramp of 
heavy army boots beneath my hotel window; and as I 
leaned out I saw an endless procession of phantom figures 
passing on into the night—ominous, vague, full of sinis- 
ter suggestion. 

From that moment on, every one’s existence was 
changed. Nothing was the same. Chaos reigned su- 
preme. And through it all one had the feeling that some 
withering hand had touched the sources of our daily 


[251] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


life and suddenly paralyzed everything. The complete 
shifting of energies and thought was nothing short of 
magic. The way certain things became absolutely static 
was bewildering. The workmen who had been painting 
the walls of my new studio disappeared like scene shift- 
ers, leaving their pails and brushes and overalls where 
they had been using them when the call had come. These 
things remained in the same spot for months and months; 
no one ever came to carry them away. My concierge, 
a cobbler by profession, gave me a first glimpse of the 
pathetic side of this crisis that had burst upon us. He 
sat in his little room at the side of the entrance door 
all day long, working away at army boots for his sons, 
silent tears moistening the hard leather in his hands. I 
couldn’t help feeling, as I often stopped and tried to 
say a few comforting words to him, that those boots 
were going to walk straight towards death. And they 
did. In an incredibly short time—and with an appal- 
lingly short interval between them—two telegrams came 
to that poor family. Their sons were among the first 
to fall on the field of honor. 

When the Hotel Foyot closed, as many of the hotels 
did at the beginning of the war, I moved into my studio, 
where the concierge’s wife took care of me; and for a 
time I remained there, looking on helpless and dazed, 
often going to the Gare du Nord to hand out a few 
cigarettes to the departing soldiers. How desperately 
sad it all was! How heart-breaking the separations 
from their beloved families! And what bravery they 


[252] 


WANDERINGS 


all showed! The soldiers kept up a cheerful front and 
their mothers and wives and sweethearts smiled through 
their tears. Only at the last moment was there a con- 
vulsive outburst when the women clung in one long, 
desperate embrace to the uniformed figures they might 
never see again. 

Many of my friends appeared suddenly and disap- 
peared just as suddenly, some of them frantic to find 
passage on any boat that would take them home. For- 
tunately for me, some one had suggested during the first 
days that I draw out all the money I had in the bank. 
This was a great comfort after the moratorium came 
into force, and no money at all could be had. Also, 
early in the summer, I had been asked by a friend to 
allow her to engage passage to America in the same 
cabin. She had hoped to obtain in this way, by giving 
up my passage at the last moment, a cabin alone. This 
arrangement proved a windfall for me when, later on, 
finding it impossible to do anything of any value in 
Paris, I decided to return to America. 

All during this time I was desperately anxious to help 
in some way. I stood in line at various stations along 
the streets, giving my name and address when admitted 
and stating my willingness to do anything at all; but 
invariably I received the reply that I would be notified 
when my services were needed. Those endless days of 
waiting to be given something to do—something that 
might be of only the slightest assistance to the country 
and people who had done so much for me—were almost 


[253] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


unbearable; and to add to my impatience and restless- 
ness, my money was diminishing rapidly. The past year 
had been an extravagant one financially. I had bought 
a house; I had cast several works in bronze; and I was 
facing the end of my resources in France. Also, I was 
disturbed over getting a fountain figure which I had 
promised to deliver that autumn, to America. No doubt 
my client could have waited for her fountain but I 
needed the payment. 

Finally I decided that the best thing for me to do was 
to use that steamer passage which my friend, Alice Simp- 
son, had reserved in my name so many months before. 
Miss Simpson, secretary of the National Sculpture So- 
ciety, is, as all New York sculptors know, capable of 
carrying through any project she undertakes. It was 
through her executive ability that we finally got to 
Havre—and not alone ourselves, but also my bronze 
statue, which she somehow managed to get on the train 
with us, and safely aboard the boat. Miss Simpson 
had determined to get me back to America and when I 
had said I would not go without my statue—using this 
as an excuse to remain in France—she said she would 
take that, too. How she managed it all is still a miracle 
tome. But she must have had a very dismal traveling 
companion for all her trouble and herculean efforts. I 
couldn’t help feeling that I was a renegade for leaving 
France at a time when she most needed friends; and even 
Miss Simpson’s arguments failed to cheer me. That she 
was right was proven by the fact that when I sent back 


[254] 


WANDERINGS 


a post office order from Havre to the mayor of Ville 
d’Avray to be used for the children of soldiers, it was 
a pitifully small amount. It was all I had left and it 
would have kept me alive in Paris only a few months; 
after it was gone I should have become much more of 
a care than a help to the nation I adored. 

All during that long voyage home I had only one con- 
soling thought—I was at least returning with a message 
to my own people, a message that formulated and de- 
‘veloped all the time that America was drawing nearer. 
I was returning to my own people and I meant to help 
others awaken them to the fact that it was not only an 
obligation, but a duty, to give all the aid that we pos- 
sibly could to war-stricken France. 


[255] 


IX 
WAR EFFORT 


THERE is no doubt about the fact that the war brought 
out all sorts of unsuspected talents—notably speech- 
making. Perfectly modest and shy people who had 
always thought they would die on the spot if forced to 
face an audience and make an address found they could 
actually get through a long speech without turning a 
hair. I know how it was, for I was one of them. Up 
to that time, whenever I tried to say something to more 
than a dozen people, my voice would disappear and 
I would break into a profuse perspiration, reaching 
the verge of complete collapse. However, the war 
loosened my tongue and, much to my surprise as well 
as that of my friends, I found that I could stand up and 
talk to no matter how many people with absolute calm. 

But honesty makes me confess that I almost passed 
away during my first experience in this new field, which 
came upon me wholly unexpectedly at a luncheon given 
at the Gamut Club. I believe I was that uncomfortable 
person called the guest of honor. While the coffee was 
being served some one rose and, to my horror, made the 
announcement that Miss Scudder would make a few 
remarks. When I realized there was no possible way 


[256] 


WAR EFFORT 


to escape, I tottered to my feet and wondered how in 
the world I was going to get through the ordeal. It is 
strange how helpful things come back to one at such 
moments! While I stood there absolutely tongue-tied, 
my knees shaking as they had never shaken before, I 
happened to remember something a man had told me of 
his first experience in speech-making. “If you are ever 
called on unexpectedly to make a speech,” he had said, 
“and feel the world crumbling about you—as you un- 
doubtedly will if you have never spoken before—get 
behind a chair and grasp it with both hands.” Well— 
I did grasp that chair; I did more than that, I held on 
to it with a despairing clutch; and by the time I had 
screwed up enough courage to glance at what seemed 
like an Atlantic Ocean of upturned faces, I had much 
more confidence. ‘Then, wonder of wonders, I heard 
my voice sounding out with a certain strident, carrying 
quality that was, to me, appalling—due no doubt to 
the small room in which I was speaking. I remember 
one of the sentences perfectly. I can repeat it now. 

“No artist has the right at this moment to think of 
his work unless in some way it is going to help in ending 
this terrible struggle that has torn the world asunder. 
Any gifts we may have should be devoted entirely to 
winning the war. We have no right to think of our- 
selves for a single moment.” | 

My friends said afterwards that I made a very good 
speech—perhaps a bit long but, on the whole, quite 
good. I suppose the length was due to the fact that, 


[257] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


after having got over the agony of starting I found it 
just as terrifying to stop. At any rate, when it was 
all over and I had collapsed in a chair, a number of 
women came up to shake hands with me and several 
among them said they agreed with me heartily and were 
going to follow my suggestion at once.. 

I shall never forget my utter bewilderment when I 
reached home the first autumn of the war and found 
some of my friends and acquaintances more or less in- 
different to what was going on in Europe. Many times, 
in recounting my experiences and impressions of the 
situation in France, some one would yawn and say: 
“Oh, Janet, for heaven’s sake stop talking about the 
war!” At first I was deeply wounded and resented this 
attitude. Very probably I made myself an awful bore 
during those first months of the war; then, gradually, I 
began to realize that my position was quite different 
from most of those about me. I had spent as much timeé 
in France as in America; in a way it was my home 
more than New York was; whereas most of my friends 
only knew it as a pleasant place to spend a few weeks 
or months in seeing its life superficially, enjoying its 
beauty only as something extraneous, knowing its people 
not at all. At first its war could not be taken as a vital 
part of their dives. How little I understood my country 
people! The hour had not yet struck—that was all 
there was to it. But the hour was not so very long in 
striking. It seems to me now that it was an amazingly 
short time before every good American was lightly 


[258] 


WAR EFFORT 


tossing aside his own affairs and going whole-heartedly 
into war work. 

My own opposition—really abhorrence—to German 
“Kultur” had begun long before the war. Its so-called 
art development never seemed to me to have anything 
to do with art at all; even its landscape and architecture 
had a peculiarly depressing effect upon me. I once at- 
tempted to overcome this prejudice and accepted an 
invitation to motor through Germany with Mrs. Stan- 
ford White and her son. This was several years before 
the war. I started off with the feeling that perhaps 
my impressions of Germany might change if I saw it 
with delightful friends. By the time we had got as far 
as Munich I realized that I wanted to return to France; 
so I telegraphed some one in Paris to send me an 
urgent message stating that it was absolutely necessary 
and most important that I come back at once. Natu- 
rally if I felt that way before the German atrocities, 
it is very easy to understand violent antipathy after the 
war had burst upon France. 

For me, the beginning of active war work in America 
started one morning when Mrs. William Astor Chanler 
came to my studio in a great state of excitement. She, 
as I, had spent many years in Paris and was impatient 
to awaken her own people to the crying needs of the 
French. She had dined the night before with Mrs. 
Lee Thomas and had heard about the soldiers’ kits that 
were being sent by the English to their men in the 
trenches. Why shouldn’t Americans send kits to the 


[259] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


French soldiers! I was as enthusiastic as Mrs. Chanler 
over this idea and we arranged to meet that evening at 
the Ritz, and after dining with Mrs. Thomas, gathered 
about a table and began formulating plans for organiz- 
ing a relief association. Emily Sloane—now Baroness de 
la Grange—made the fourth of our little group. We 
worked far into the night, making all sorts of plans but 
feeling a little uncertain about the best way of arousing 
enthusiasm over our project. It was Mrs. Chanler who 
finally hit upon the very clever idea of enlisting Richard 
Harding Davis’s interest. In a few days she had the 
whole of the United States flooded with soul-stirring 
literature composed by Mr. Davis, and the Lafayette 
Fund had come into existence. 

The junior committee, consisting of a number of very 
energetic and attractive young New York women, was 
put in my charge and this committee immediately went 
to work. We first designed a ball that was given in the 
Della Robbia room of the Vanderbilt Hotel at which 
the members of the committee wore Lafayette costumes. 
This affair went off with so much success that we decided 
to give the entertainment each week. The hotel was ex- 
tremely generous and did everything possible to help us 
make these balls successful; every one was ready and 
anxious to give us what was needed for decorations; the 
florists donated flowers; and the shops offered anything 
we wanted. The second ball was more crowded than 
the first—the Moonlight Ball; then followed in quick 
succession the Italian Ball, the South Sea Island Ball, 

[ 260 | 


WAR EFFORT 


the Russian Ball and on through a series that lasted for 
many weeks. The Lafayette Fund began to grow to 
enormous proportions. Illustrated post cards were sent 
out all over the country, giving pictures of the contents of 
the kits—a rubber trench coat, woolen underwear, hand- 
kerchiefs, pencils, pipes, etc. Money poured in to such 
an extent that we had to enlarge our work rooms. Dozens 
of people packed kits all day long until thousands and 
thousands of these helpful packages were being rushed 
over to France. We had a film taken of our work rooms, 
which created much interest and increased our funds 
enormously. 

After the Lafayette Fund was going on practically 
automatically, its originators became interested in the 
work of the great bazaars which had then begun. Once 
interest in the war was fully developed in America, her 
generosity knew no limits; but one thing had always to 
be very carefully considered—that ever-shifting atten- 
tion of New York; something new had to be constantly 
offered; even war work had to be diverting and clever © 
to arouse new excitement. 

At the first great bazaar in New York Mrs. Benjamin 
Guinness and I were given a large section to do what 
we pleased with. We arranged an indoor garden and 
called it the Café de Paris; and we gave much time 
and thought to planning how we could keep our café 
up to the profitable mark set by others. We adver- 
tised the cook of our café as being the granddaughter 
of an earl—Dotty Larking; and our head waiter as a 


[261 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


prince—Prince Troubetskoy. We had scouts out all 
over the floors looking for celebrities and, when one was 
found, he was invited to our section to have something to 
eat. Once the celebrity was safely landed and placed at 
a table, I would rush off to a little workshop I had at 
the back of the café and paint a large sign announcing 
that Mrs. Vernon Castle was guest of honor that day—or 
Nijinsky—or some visiting foreign general—or one of 
our own well-known politicians. It made little difference 
who the person was, provided he was well in the public 
eye; and the instant the sign was put up every table in 
the café would be filled—in fact often the crowd became 
so great that the food gave out. Those provisions, by the 
way, were all donated by the generous hotels and restau- 
rants of New York; we never paid a cent for anything 
and all the money that was taken in was pure profit. Of 
course our means of getting people in to see celebrities 
was something of a hoax, as none of them ever made 
a speech or danced or sang or performed in any way, 
but we felt that any means of making money those 
days was justified; and we did make it, tremendous 
sums. 

All the effort that was being made in New York and 
the things I myself took part in were most interesting; 
but after two years of it—two years in which I had 
done an amazing amount of work in sculpture, a large 
fountain, several commissions, among which were a seal 
for the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of In- 
diana and another which our Government gave to the 


[ 262 | 


Photo A. B. Bogart, New York 
TORTOISE BOY FOUNTAIN 


This photograph taken in Paris Salon, 1913 


Photo White 
JANET SCUDDER IN LAFAYETTE BALL COSTUME 


Ball given by Lafayette Fund, 1915 or 1916. 


WAR EFFORT 


members of a Brazilian commission for something or 
other that they had done in prehistoric times, all of 
which had given me a quite fat bank account—the 
desire to get back to France and work there on the 
spot began to grow almost uncontrollable. All that 
time, living in a studio on Fifty-seventh Street, the hope 
of returning was foremost in my mind. A fact that 
now strikes me as somewhat extraordinary is that I ac- 
complished se much in my own field at the time that my 
thoughts were centering on aiding the country which 
had done so much for me. The realization that I had 
left France with all my savings invested and that if I 
intended to return there and help, it would be neces- 
sary to have actual money, may have had something to 
do with my working so hard and so continuously. At 
any rate, those first two years of the war were the most 
profitable I have ever had. 

But how to get back! To accomplish this, one had 
to belong to a special war service. Thousands were 
offering themselves for overseas work and some hun- 
dreds were accepted with the greatest care as to their 
future efficiency in France. The feeling was beginning 
to grow that too many untrained workers were already 
there, especially women who might be actually in the 
way and a source of trouble. 

I was having tea in New York one day with Mrs. 
Robert Woods Bliss—her husband was then counselor 
of our Embassy in Paris—and she raised my hopes of 
being useful by telling me that one of the greatest needs 


[263 ] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


of the moment was for automobiles and chauffeurs. I 
jumped at the idea of offering a car and myself as chauf- 
feur. I bought a car at once, had all sorts of acces- 
sories attached to it, learned to drive, got all the neces- 
sary papers in order—this was the most difficult and 
trying part of the whole proceeding—and was just on 
the point of sailing when Mrs. Bliss, who had returned 
to Paris, cabled me that as gasoline had become very 
scarce in France it would be useless to add to the num- 
ber of cars already in service with her GEuvre. An awful 
blow to my hopes! 

By this time I was so fired with the idea of getting 
back to France that I left the car behind and sailed 
alone. But, alas! once in Paris there seemed literally 
nothing for me to do. I don’t think I have ever encoun- 
tered such consistently discouraging conditions. There 
was a great need of help in every direction and yet one 
was discouraged from lending it. I have never quite 
made out the psychology of that time; it may have 
been the inertia that followed in the wake of the first 
great impetus; it may have been that those who had 
already got going in certain directions were not cor- 
dially disposed towards others who wanted to be in the 
thick of the work, too; at any rate, I sat about Paris 
holding my hands for a few days and then rented an 
apartment, installed a very good cook in it, bought a 
piano and started out trying to furnish some sort of en- 
tertainment and diversion for mutilated and invalided 
soldiers. Some of my musical friends of the past joined 


[264 | 


WAR EFFORT 


me; and I think we did something in the way of help- 
ing those poor suffering men to forget, at least for the 
time being, what they had been through and all they 
had suffered. 

During these entertainments, my friend, Mrs. Lane, 
came often to sing for the soldiers. Her most popular 
songs were a series by Sinding, which were so much ap- 
preciated and were so really beautiful that we felt they 
would have a success in New York and bring in funds 
for the wives and families of artists and writers who 
had gone to the war and who were no longer able to 
earn a living. The absolute poverty and suffering of 
such families in Paris were appalling; and what made 
their situation even more heart-breaking was the fact 
that they tried so hard to hide their actual want. 
There were many people who had lived comfortably 
and happily until the one source of their income was cut 
off, leaving them destitute. It has always seemed to 
me that we are very much more inclined to give help 
to paupers and forget often that those who do not ask 
for assistance are sometimes the ones in the direst need 
of it. 

Mrs. Lane and I decided we would return to New 
York and see what we could do in the way of raising 
funds for “Les Ecrivains Francais.” Our plan was en- 
thusiastically received. Mrs. Charles Alexander loaned 
us her ballroom for the first concert, Lloyd Warren 
made a speech and Camille Lane sang the group of 
Sinding songs in the original Norwegian, explaining in 


[265] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


English the meaning of each song before she sang it. 
It was a very smart audience and surely belied the 
impression so many people have that fashionable audi- 
ences do not make good listeners. No one talked or 
even whispered, and at the end there was a great burst 
of applause. 

The “Société des Auteurs Dramatiques” and “Les 
Gens de Lettres” of Paris received a most satisfactory 
send-off later, as we were so encouraged by the first con- 
cert that we took a theater and gave a series of matinées. 
Then, another big bazaar being on the tapis, we threw 
in our help there and arranged a spectacular opening 
for the first night in which Mrs. Lane, surrounded by 
twelve French marines and twelve American sailors, 
stood on the stage and sang the Marseillaise. During 
the encore the entire audience took up the refrain and 
sang it with thrilling effect. It was easy enough to see 
now that America was no longer indifferent to what 
was going on on the other side. Our interest and sym- 
pathies were fully aroused and were well on the way 
to the most astounding outburst of enthusiasm and 
effort that the world has ever seen. 

When America finally went into the war and was no 
longer merely sending over vast sums of money for relief 
work and Red Cross and Y.M.C.A. workers, but whole 
armies of men, who were going to fight in the trenches 
beside those who had been at it so long, Mrs. Lane and 
I were filled with envy. So many were going to the 
Front that we could not bear the thought of not being 

[ 266 | 


WAR EFFORT 


among them. But now that our country was actually in 
the thick of the fight, that old bugbear—finding some 
actual, definite work to do—seemed to have grown to 
even greater proportions. ‘Thousands of people were 
clamoring to get “over there’ and were offering them- 
selves for any job that would be given them. One 
evening when Julia Marlowe and Sothern were dining 
with me in Washington Mews—I had a small house 
there at that time—they announced that they had just 
signed up with the Y.M.C.A. and were sailing for 
France in a few days. We immediately began to ask 
all sorts of questions about the entertainment depart- 
ment of the Y.M.C.A. in which the Sotherns had been 
enrolled. Mr. Sothern, seeing our eagerness, said he 
would introduce us to the head of that department and 
suggested that Mrs. Lane go over as a singer to enter- 
tain the boys in the camps. At that time there was a 
great demand for entertainers; and in a few days Mrs. 
Lane had been accepted and was in the midst of learn- 
ing a lot of jazz songs—which she had never sung be- 
fore—and arranging her program preparatory to sail- 
ing. 

Those were very sad days for me. I had been told by 
the Y.M.C.A. that they had no place for me; sculptors 
didn’t seem to fit in anywhere—if I had been a painter 
it would have been different; but a sculptor! What 
under the sun could a sculptor do in the war? Mr. 
Sothern came to my rescue and suggested to the head 
of the entertainment department that I be sent along as 


[267 | 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Mrs. Lane’s manager and be given the job of making 
speeches before each concert. I jumped at the idea and 
declared that I had spoken on many and very serious 
occasions; that I was considered a very good speaker. 
Fortunately every one was too busy to try me out on 
this assertion and make me show my talents; but I 
congratulated myself on not having failed that day at 
the Gamut Club, though that experience and the more 
remote one when I read an essay on the subject of 
Utopia—under the active threats of my stepmother— 
rose before me with far from reassuring suggestions. 
But nothing would have fazed me; I would have un- 
dertaken anything they might have given me to do. 
If any one had told me, a few months before, that my 
share in doing something in the war was going to be 
that of speechmaker I would have laughed in derision. 
But once the Y.M.C.A. manager had engaged me for 
that purpose, along with that of concert manager, I went 
to work seriously to learn the new game of speech-mak- 
ing. And so—while Mrs. Lane practised jazz songs in 
one room, I prepared and delivered speeches to the bare 
walls of my studio. 

We kept a journal of our war experiences; and noth- 
ing gives us more pleasure than to get it out occasion- 
ally and re-create the adventures Mrs. Lane and I had. 
Sometimes we wonder how we stood the horrible dis- 
comforts, the strain, the utter fatigue and the distress- 
ing scenes we encountered all through those six months 
with the Y.M.C.A. In a way the whole time was a 

[ 268 ] 


WAR EFFORT 


nightmare of crowded, filthy trains; arrivals at all hours 
of the night in strange places where we were seldom 
met and where no arrangements had been made to take 
care of us; orders to leave at a moment’s notice for this, 
that and the other place; and food and beds that were 
beyond anything we had ever imagined. An ever-shift- 
ing film of places—Blois, Tours, Montoir, Vannes, 
Langres, Fort de Stain, Saint Nazaire, and many others 
—rises before me when I think of those days. 

It is said that war brings out the best and the worst 
in people. I am inclined to accept this theory. For our 
own boys who were in the trenches, doing the fighting, 
offering their lives for their country’s honor, there can 
be nothing but the most unstinted praise; they showed 
themselves just what we all expected of them—brave, 
good sports, cheerful, in fact entirely wonderful; judg- 
ing from them America has no need for worrying over 
her future. But the Y.M.C.A., with which I worked for 
six consecutive months, proved to be all wrapped round 
with red tape, at times very trying. 
~ To a woman who has fought her way through life, 


“made her decisions and planned out each step that would 


lead towards constructive work, the experience of find- 
ing herself absolutely under the direction and control 
of an inferior person is extremely amusing—in retro- 
spect. It was quite the contrary while the experience 
was going on. My first Y.M.C.A. boss took charge of 
me as soon as I stepped on board the Espagne sailing 
from New York. She immediately announced that she 


[269 ] 


MODELING MY. LIFE 


had been given entire charge of the volunteers, would 
take care of us and that we need not worry about any- 
thing. After this pronouncement she promptly took to 
her bed, overcome by the unaccustomed motion of a ship, 
and did not appear again during the whole voyage. 
Upon arrival at Bordeaux, still unused to the idea 
that my whole life was being taken care of by a young 
woman who had been unable to conquer seasickness, I 
started off to make arrangements for the journey to Paris, 
engaged some one to go ahead and reserve a sleeping 
compartment on the night train, and as soon as the gang- 
plank had been lowered, grabbed our valises and was 
all ready to make a rush across Bordeaux to the station. 
Such individual assurance, however, did not meet with 
approval from the Y.M.C.A. secretaries in charge of us. 
I was peremptorily told that my place was with the 
other volunteers, that I should give my valises into the 
hands of the man engaged to look after them, and that 
I should await the busses which were to carry the 
whole party to an hotel. I gave up and meekly fell in 
line. We were crowded into camions, taken to an 
hotel where we signed papers—the number of papers 
that we signed that day would fill volumes; and then 
we sat through a long lecture delivered by a Y.M.C.A. 
secretary, who had been in France about two weeks and 
who told us in detail what our special duties were 
going to be. After this followed long sermons and 
prayers; and finally we were all put into day coaches, 
made to sit up all night, and, once in Paris were told 


[270] 


WAR EFFORT 


we could do what we pleased for the next two weeks, 
at the end of which time we must report for duty. | 

Of course regulations had to be followed, but how 
I did fume and chafe under that first taste of red tape! 
Not since I had got safely away from the control of 
my stepmother had I been ordered about and told what 
to do. At times I wondered if I could stand it; then 
I would always say to myself: This is what you wanted 
—this is what every one is undergoing—this is your 
chance to help. Keep hold of yourself and be calm! 
I have heard many others laugh over similar expe- 
riences. One man, a banker, told me that the only 
war work given him to do was the cleaning of lava- 
tories in a southern camp; and another, a man over 
fifty, who had never done anything in the way of hard 
or disagreeable labor, was given, after months of in- 
sistence, the job of crossing on transports where he did 
nothing but wash decks. All of which goes to prove 
that no American balked at anything—yjust so it was 
something that would help war work. But I must say 
it took self-control and determination always to follow 
the orders of perfectly inexperienced and _ inefficient 
people whose heads had been turned by the authority 
given them by army uniforms. 

To be once more in Paris and with two weeks of free- 
dom from authority was a consoling interim. But those 
hectic first nights with air attacks made sleep impos- 
sible, and those terrifying days during which resound- 
ing crashes from Big Bertha kept one continually on the 


[271] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


jump were not full of repose. So to prepare ourselves 
for our labors, Mrs. Lane and I went out to my house 
at Ville d’Avray. There, in the quiet of those charm- 
ing surroundings, it was almost impossible to believe 
there was a war—at least until, in the middle of the 
night, we were awakened by the shrieking of the 
“Alerte,”’ the signal that an air attack was imminent. 
We had been told to watch for this signal and that the 
moment it was heard we must rush for a place of 
safety. We chose the kitchen as the safest place, as 
the walls and ceiling had recently been repaired and 
were thought to be particularly strong. This turned 
out to be a somewhat unfortunate choice, as the woman 
who had come to help about the house and cook for us 
had bought a large Camembert cheese which she stored 
away in a kitchen cabinet. In the tightly closed room 
a particularly ominous odor—at the time we did not 
know what it was—became so strong that, even though 
the sky was filled with the awful racket of firing guns 
and exploding shells, we found it impossible to remain. 
If we had to die, we decided it would be a much more 
honorable death to be killed by a Boche bomb than by 
the scent of a Camembert cheese. We bolted for the 
salon and left the safer place to that cheese. 

That night seemed to be entirely without end. After 
the air attack subsided and the protecting guns became 
silent, the most dismal sound imaginable continued until 
dawn—the howling of dogs. The weird, mournful sug- 
gestion of that sound was the last straw to nerves that 


[272] 


WAR EFFORT 


were already badly worn by an uncertain sea voyage 
with the ever-present danger of submarines. The next 
day we returned to Paris. The peace of Ville d’Avray 
was a delusion. We found it much more comfortable 
to spend the hours of attack in the cellar of the Con- 
tinental Hotel, where easy chairs and the companion- 
ship of human beings made the time less long and dreary 
—and where Camembert cheeses were locked away in 
ice chests. 

No one who has not been through air attacks can 
imagine the horror of them. When I realized that so 
many people in Paris had lived through them, uncom- 
plaining and unafraid, during months and months, and 
intended to live through many more if necessary, my 
admiration for the French people increased more than 
ever. And the “Big Bertha” was horrible. Yet the 
way those French people took it was nothing short of 
marvelous. We were in the Continental Hotel when we 
had our first experience with the long-distance gun. The 
hotel was in direct range that day. The first shot landed 
in the Tuileries garden just across the Rue de Rivoli and 
exploded with a crash that shook the whole street. We 
waited, stunned, to see what had happened; then, very 
gradually, came the realization that the people about 
us were taking it as a matter of course. A woman in 
the hall, polishing a brass door knob, did not stop a 
moment in her work; and outside in the street a man 
continued calling out in a nasal voice that well-known, 
century-old Paris cry: “Voici le raccommodeur de 


[273] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


faiences et porcelaines! Avez-vous des porcelaines et 
faiences a racommoder?”—which seemed particularly 
appropriate at that moment, for there must have been 
many pieces of porcelain that needed mending after 
such a terrific crash. 

At the end of two weeks Mrs. Lane and I were sum- 
moned to Headquarters and told that our road had been 
mapped out, papers and passes in order and that we 
should start off at once. We were called the “Lane 
Company” and were hustled about from camp to camp 
to give concerts for our boys, very much like a road com- 
pany at home except that I’m sure the road companies 
never had anything like the experiences we encountered 
along the way. Sometimes, when Mrs, Lane was utterly 
worn out, I wrote back to Headquarters and complained 
of the lack of arrangements and preparations for her, 
explaining that she would be unable to continue singing 
for the soldiers if she were compelled to endure these 
unnecessary hardships, which were already affecting her 
voice. We were delighted to have the chance to do our 
bit, we were in it heart and soul, that is what we had 
come over for, but often the indifference and even heart- 
lessness of the Y.M.C.A. secretaries in charge of the 
camp huts were more than we could bear in silence. At 
one time we went twenty-four hours without food; and 
often we literally sat up all night because there was no 
bed to sleep in. At moments the utter stupidity of red 
tape got the best of me and I had to burst out in a loud 
voice against it. Once, seeing a French officer who 


[274] 


WAR EFFORT 


tried to buy a package of cigarettes at a Y.M.C.A. 
canteen refused, I asked the woman in charge what that 
meant. She explained, red in the face with mortifica- 
tion, that she had her orders to sell to no one but 
American soldiers; that she was subject to such embar- 
tassing refusal and that she secretly often went against 
rules and let the French soldiers have what they asked 
for. 

But it was not only to the French that things were 
often refused without a special order. Once, when Mrs. 
Lane was worn out from having sung a whole afternoon 
in the hospital to sick soldiers while their wounds were 
being dressed—this was done at the suggestion of the 
doctor, who said music would help the tortured men 
through those horribly painful moments—I found that 
absolutely nothing to eat was to be had in the hotel in 
which we were spending the night. J went immediately 
to the Y.M.C.A. quarters, where the secretaries were 
having supper and asked for food. The table about 
which they sat was heavily laden with bread—white 
bread!—butter, bowls of sugar and large platters of 
food. My hungry eyes took in everything while I tim- 
idly asked the man in charge to let me have a little 
butter and bread and sugar. He said it was impossible 
without somebody or other’s written order, and that this 
authority had gone away for two days! At this my 
hunger became uncontrollable. I grabbed a napkin from 
the sideboard and reached over the heads of those feed- 
ing secretaries, dumped the contents of a sugar bowl 


[275] 


i MODELING MY LIFE 


in it, picked up several pieces of bread and finally ap- 
propriated a plate of butter. No one protested, no one 
said anything—and neither did I. But what I thought 
of an American organization and American men who 
could permit themselves to reach such a state of bad 
manners, to put it mildly, kept me awake all that night. 
Our compensation, though, for such experiences came 
during the concerts when the soldiers responded to our 
efforts to cheer them up and gave us lots of applause 
and thanks. 

I suppose we would have gone on giving concerts up 
to the end of the war if Mrs. Lane’s voice—due to ex- 
posure and the hard life—had not given out. This 
meant looking for another job and landing for a few 
weeks in canteen work. From that we went on to some- 
thing which interested us both immensely—decorating 
Y.M.C.A. huts. It came about quite by chance that we 
fell into this form of war-work. Miss Ferris, in charge 
of the decoration of huts, happened to tell us that she 
was very hard up for assistants, and asked us to take 
over the decorating of the hut we were in at that time 
at Saint Nazaire. Our work met with such approval 
that other secretaries, seeing the Saint Nazaire hut so 
changed, clamored for us to come to theirs and make 
them a little more cheerful to live in. This ended in 
our becoming traveling house painters. We went from 
camp to camp, mixed colors, climbed ladders, hung cur- 
tains and accomplished a lot of work. I don’t think I 

ever before realized how much surroundings have to do 


[276 | 


WAR EFFORT 


with one’s state of mind. Those huts, when we went 
into them, were plain, dismal, bare, mud-splashed struc- 
tures that were depressing beyond words; when we left 
them they were gay rooms, filled with colors that sug- 
gested sunny days and cheerful times. We tried to 
make them into a message of hope and gaiety for the 
soldiers. 

After the six months, which we had signed up to 
work with the Y.M.C.A., had come to an end we got 
ourselves transferred to the Red Cross; and here our 
work met with delightful codperation on all sides. We 
accomplished more in a few days with the Red Cross 
than we had with the Y.M.C.A. in weeks; there was 
not nearly so much red tape and never any stupid in- 
terference with our work; and a not unimportant point 
is that we were always well cared for and had no 
physical discomforts. We continued working with this 
organization several months after the armistice had been 
signed. } 

On the 11th of November, 1918, we had the luck to 
be in Paris. That morning I had been out to Ville 
d’Avray to look over my house, which I had turned over 
to the Y.M.C.A. and which had been used by that or- 
ganization for some time. On the way to Headquarters 
in Paris to make some arrangements for decorating a 
hut, we heard vague but insistent rumors about the possi- 
bility of good news reaching Paris that day. Something 
was in the air; we hardly knew what; but every one 
appeared to feel a little more cheerful than usual. We 


[277] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


hated going down to the cellar that day and sorting our 
paints and curtains; we wanted to roam the streets and 
pick up some news—anything that would tell us the 
end was in sight. Mrs. Lane and I stood it as long as 
we could, then we bolted and rushed out to see what 
was going on. ‘The streets were disappointingly calm. 
Some one told us the armistice had already been signed; 
others said this was a premature report; and at any 
rate the French people were not yet making any demon- 
stration—they were too accustomed to false reports to 
accept such momentous news without certainty. Though 
there was a very distinct buzz in the air no special edi- 
tion of papers had yet appeared. 

We lunched at a restaurant on the boulevards and 
looked impatiently through the windows for some signs 
of excitement. Gradually small groups began to as- 
semble, shake hands and embrace; and finally a crowd 
of “midinettes” appeared with tricolored decorations 
in their hair—and as every one in Paris knows, the 
“midinettes’” are the barometers of festivity. Still, 
there was nothing definite. I began to wonder if the 
French, having waited so long for this day, were going 
to let it pass without doing much about it. We were 
on the point of going back to work, as there seemed 
to be nothing to wait for or to see. But once out in 
the street after lunch the scene changed suddenly as if 
by magic. Small processions were forming in every 
direction. Poilus, Americans, Australians, Tommies, 
Italians, Greeks, Japanese, and people of every allied 


[278 ] 


WAR EFFORT 


nation appeared from every corner and door and win- 
dow. Ina few minutes the boulevards were so crowded 
that we were jammed back into a recess and could 
not move in any direction. The singing of the Mar- 
seillaise gradually rose, solemn, sonorous, drowning all 
sounds of traffic. Taxis, so filled that you could not 
count the occupants, passed slowly through the masses 
of people. Groups of poilus carried American soldiers 
high on their shoulders and as they passed along 
Frenchwomen rushed after to embrace them. The 
whole scene was one of very deep emotion—with as 
many tears as smiles. 

As I stood there looking on, I pulled out my hand- 
kerchief to wipe my eyes; and a man standing next 
to me said: 

“Don’t be ashamed of your tears, madame. They 
were never so honest as they are to-day.” Then he 
added, noticing my American uniform: “And it is to 
you that we owe this day. Without America we would 
never have had it.” 

“No—no!” I insisted. “France would have stood 
the brunt of the war to the last! She would never 
have given up!” 

He nodded solemnly. ‘“Yes—France has the right 
to be proud—but without America she could not have 
gone on much longer.” 

Soon I found myself walking along atl a midinette 
on one side of me and a poilu on the other. I don’t 
think any of us had any idea where we were going; we 


[279] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


were just following or being pushed along by the crowd. 
No one was cross, no one impatient; we were all, it 
seemed, a huge mass of friends; but as for making 
progress in any direction, that seemed to be the last thing 
any one wanted to do. We just gave ourselves over to 
the movement of the throng and thought about nothing 
—except the happiness of that day. We finally got into 
the Place de la Concorde and climbed up on one of the 
Boche cannons placed there. Those hundreds of Ger- 
man war implements gathered there became orchestra 
chairs from which to view the amazing celebration. 
Machine guns became victory chariots covered with 
poilus and drawn by American soldiers. 

To be in Paris that memorable eleventh of November 
and to see the gathering storm of joy develop and 
sweep over the whole city was worth everything we 
had been through. Crossing the ocean with the fear 
of submarines in the back of one’s mind; the terrify- 
ing bombardments of Paris from long-distance guns,. 
the nightly “‘alertes,” the descent into moldy cellars— 
all these gruesome details counted for nothing beside 
the emotion of being alive and in Paris on the day of 
the armistice. And yet there was a very deep sadness 
throughout all that gaiety. No one seemed to forget, 
even in the moment of triumph, the millions who had 
died to make that day possible. There was a great deal 
of singing—popular songs and always the Marseillaise 
—but there was no band music; that would have been. 
somehow too harsh, too loud, too mechanical; the music 


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that burst forth came only from throats and straight 
from the heart. 

I shall always be thankful for my war experiences, 
even though they were of no particular importance. 
And I am grateful that I was permitted to do some- 
thing, no matter how little it was, for the country that 
suffered so extraordinarily and so bravely. My enthu- 
siasm and love for France were tremendously increased 
during those five years of her terrible hardships, and as 
for my own glorious country, no words can express the 
pride of Americans who were privileged to watch her 
on the spot put an end to that horrible war. 


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Every one who took any active part in the war—I 
mean those who had thrown their interests and energies 
into seeing it through and letting the personal side of 
life take care of itself—was faced with a very serious 
problem when the armistice was signed. The moment 
of exaltation that followed on victory left an appalling 
void; the object of life appeared suddenly to have van- 
ished. Where were we! What were we going to do! 
How under the sun could we go back and pick up the 
threads dropped four years before! 

Like every one else who had been through that hor- 
rible upheaval, I was bewildered, not only as to the 
future but also as to the immediate present. I under- 
stood so perfectly the attitude of those boys who had 
spent months in training camps and, later on, months 
in the trenches, when they were suddenly told that they 
were to be sent back home into the same old unromantic 
grind of their former existence. At first a great joy and 
relief and then a curious flatness of spirits. A silent 
studio with a north light and my profession of sculptor 
seemed to me, during those early days of declared peace, 
just as tiresome and uninteresting as routine life on a 
farm and the deadly dull round of village days might 

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appear to a soldier. Adventure had suddenly been taken 
away from us; there was no longer any danger. There 
is no denying the fact that a certain zest for life had 
gone with the signing of the armistice; and we were 
once more facing the matter-of-fact. For a long time 
one felt at loose ends; we had worked ourselves up to a 
white heat of enthusiasm and then, presto! out of a clear 
sky we were told to bundle up and get back home, that it 
was all over, that there was nothing more to do. Some- 
times, in reviewing those days and the after-effects of 
the armistice, I wonder if a great deal of our present- 
day dissatisfaction and unrest is not due in great 
measure to that stoppage of tremendous effort. If we 
had been able to go on until we had, in a way, ex- 
hausted ourselves, it would surely have been easier to 
go back home and pick up again with the satisfied feel- 
ing of having shot our bolt. There is nothing so quiet- 
ing and relaxing as complete exhaustion. 

Mrs. Lane and I faced each other, a few days after 
the armistice, with expressions of quite frank conster- 
nation. What were we going to do! Fortunately for 
us the Red Cross work had not ended. The returning 
home of those thousands of men was not a question of 
days. It would be months before they could be got off; 
and in the meantime they had to be fed and housed and 
amused. Huts and mess halls and rest rooms were 
needed, cheerful places, and to us was given the job 
of making recreation huts as cheerful as possible. So 
off we went, splashing about through France with huge 


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MODELING MY LIFE 


brushes and enormous quantities of brilliant colors, 
making dark and muddy places gay and bright. It was 
great fun and we left a trail of good spirits after us in 
the form of vivid color. 

The psychological effect of colors on the spirits of 
American soldiers in France had been a revelation to us. 
It actually developed into a passion, a real mission. 
We began to study the meaning of certain colors and 
their subtle effects. We developed all sorts of ideas 
about what we considered a new science. We decided 
particularly to break up the old tradition that ceilings 
should be white and only white—which we decided was 
an utterly silly tradition. Take for instance a new- 
born child. It spends months and months on its back 
with the ceiling as its first real companion. Why should 
it blink away all that time gazing at something that is 
glaring and wholly uninteresting! Even for a grown-up 
the ceiling counts more than the walls of a room—espe- 
cially in a bedroom. It is the last thing we see at night 
and the first thing we see in the morning. Ceilings 
should be warm and cheerful, not deep colors but gentle 
glows. The idea that colors absorb the light and that 
rooms are made dark when ceilings are not white is all 
nonsense. We went further in the psychological theory 
of our color schemes and cited instances of the effect 
of color on certain temperaments. If a person were 
surrounded with a color that was sympathetic to him, 
the best in him would surely be brought out. And 
then, certain combinations of color bring out certain 


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emotions. Each one of us demonstrates this in express- 
ing a preference for a certain color; surely the color 
we prefer is the one that has the pleasantest emotional 
effect upon us. 

Color is one of the greatest gifts God has given us. 
And yet, strangely enough, the use of this gift has never 
been very seriously studied. Even to-day, when we 
think interior decorating has achieved its high mark of 
consideration, the architect or decorator follows his own 
inclinations as to color schemes and the owner of the 
house, the one who is going to pass his days in the rooms, 
does not seem to realize that it is of any importance 
whatever whether he is surrounded by greens or blues 
or reds or yellows. 

I am perfectly convinced that the formative years of 
a child’s life are tremendously affected by the colors on 
the walls of the room in which he passes his time. Take 
red for instance: on one child it may have a salutary 
effect, bringing out the best that is in him; in another 
case it might be actually unhealthy. Women talk and 
think a great deal about the colors that “become” them; 
they spend hours over the subject of the colors of their 
dresses without giving a thought to the color of the 
background against which these dresses are to be seen; 
and yet the colors of her setting, her room, are much 
more important than the colors a woman puts on her 
back. Sometimes we have moments of real inspiration 
as to colors, as was recently shown when a smart hotel 
in New York found that a newly decorated dining-room 


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MODELING MY LIFE 


was not popular, that people would not dine there—all 
of which was due, as was later explained by one of the 
hotel’s most constant patrons, to the fact that the color 
of the room, a dull green, was not only most depressing 
but also very unbecoming. The time is not so far off 
when it will be realized that the health, happiness, and 
good nature of each individual depend upon his being 
surrounded by the colors that best suit his temperament. 
Of course, as so often happens in America, a theory 
may develop into a crusade, and after the crusade has 
begun to sweep the country one will no doubt accept 
invitations to spend the week-end in the country, only 
with the understanding that the room given him will be 
done in a subtle shade of crushed mulberry with touches 
of gilt on the furniture; or he may get to the point 
where he will carry his own color schemes round with 
him so as to avoid any temperamental upset. 

The more huts and rest-houses we painted, the more 
Mrs. Lane and I became obsessed with our color 
schemes. We wanted to get beyond interior decoration 
and get out into the open and do huge exteriors. Noth- 
ing smaller than a hangar seemed to offer space enough 
to satisfy us. We got to the point where we saw streets 
of color, where all the shops and houses and theaters 
were gaily painted; we even had visions of long lines of 
carriages and motors and camions painted in all sorts of 
combinations of strong colors. We thought our ideas 
very advanced at that time, but already, particularly in 
Paris, we are seeing them come into actual existence. 


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We were only thinking a few years in advance of the 
moment—as any one can see who strolls about Paris 
these days. Shop after shop has shed its drab reddish 
brown, the formerly accepted color for facades, and has 
taken unto itself bright blues and reds and greens or 
yellows; a perfectly black taxicab is beginning to be an 
exception. It is only a matter of a year or two when 
Paris will be a lovely mass of color. 
_ That was what we dreamed of making of New York, 
in those after-armistice days; we wanted to see it a city 
of gay and cheerful colors; and we went home with 
high hopes, believing we had a real mission. We talked 
ourselves blue and red and pink and green in the face, 
but we had very little chance to put these colors on the 
outside walls of houses. At last a ray of hope came. 
We actually landed a job—with an automobile show- 
room on upper Broadway. Our opportunity had come 
to show our native land what we could do in the way of 
brightening it up. We painted the outside of the shop 
bright blue and yellow; and the show window was noth- 
ing less than a riot of color. When the work was done 
and unveiled, crowds stopped and gaped in amazement 
and we were fully convinced that success had rushed 
down upon us with hurtling force. But alas! that same 
day one of the owners of the company turned up in 
New York, gave an alarmed look at our handiwork, 
ordered the building put back at once into its conserva- 
tive chocolate-brown and timid tans and then returned 
to the Ritz and immediately died. Mrs. Lane and I 


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MODELING MY LIFE 


tried to accept the blow bravely, but we were desper- 
ately discouraged; however, we didn’t go to the Ritz 
and die, we just went down to the dock and took the 
first boat sailing for France—she to begin painting pic- 
tures and [ once more to inhabit my silent studio with 
the north light. It was all well enough to dream of 
the streets of New York looking like bands of beau- 
tiful colored ribbons, but while we were dreaming, it 
was necessary to go on living, and living, so far as I 
am concerned, seemed very definitely to settle down to 
sculpture in my studio, tucked away in the Latin Quar- 
ter. Besides, the war was over, and we were gradually 
drifting back into the rut, though I doubt very much if 
our footsteps will ever exactly fit again into the same 
old prints. 

The years go gliding along, people come and go, 
and my little faun, almost completed, lifts the corners 
of his eyes, picks up his reeds and sends me a furtive 
glance, smiling—and sarcastic. I’m sure he was mock- 
ing, just this morning, when he glanced at a richly clad 
lady who came into my studio, sank down in a chair 
and glanced about at my work. | 

“Tf I had only had the time—or the encouragement— 
or the money in my youth I also might have done some- 
thing in an artistic way!’ She sighed deeply and drew 
her furs closer about her. A sculptor’s studio is not 
exactly a cozy place on the desperately cold Paris morn- 
ings. ‘‘But—alas—it is too late now!” 

Even though my faun smiled more mockingly than 


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ever, I did not. Such expressions of unfulfilled desire 
always arouse my sympathy. Though often spoken 
casually and without any special intent, I invariably 
interpret them as coming straight from the heart. 
Every one has a longing to do creative work—be it ever 
so vague and unformulated; and being an artist does 
not necessarily mean just knowing how to paint or 
model or compose music and design houses. 

_ So when the dissatisfied because unoccupied lady said, 
“Tf I had only had the time—or the encouragement— 
or the money,” I tried to explain to her that none of 
these things was necessary because no one who wants to 
be an artist is bothered about finding time and money 
and encouragement to pursue his studies. Some of our 
best artists have studied and developed their artistic 
career after finishing a hard day’s work. If the impulse 
is strong enough time will be found. As for money, 
one has only to cite incidents of hundreds who have 
struggled straight through years of poverty until success 
comes. I know what I am talking about, for I had to 
do it myself. Getting up at five o’clock in the morning 
and cooking my own breakfast never lessened enthu- 
siam in the slightest degree. It was all a necessary 
part of making the opportunities that I craved and was 
determined to have. As for encouragement, what more 
do we need than the thrilling knowledge within our- 
selves that we might possibly do something that will 
live long after we are dead. And as for its being too 
late—that is pure nonsense. Every one of us ought 


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to be doing something worth while right up to the 
moment when we go to bed for the last time. William 
De Morgan began to write after he was seventy; very 
few men are presidents of the United States until they 
are well past fifty; the best statue of Jeanne d’Arc in 
the world—the one that stands before the Rheims ca- 
' thedral—was done by a man who began to study sculp- 
\ture after he was forty—Paul Dubois; and recently I 
have known a woman who commenced to paint after she 
was fifty, and whose work, in less than a year, was re- 
ceived in the Paris Salon. { Instead of saying it is too 
late, how much more sensible it would be to say: “Here 
I am past fifty. I have lived through the tempestuous 
periods of life. I have learned my lessons with burnt 
fingers and enduring experiences. I know what love, 
hate, friendship, suffering, joy, are. I have tasted all 
the emotions. I know what I think of this existence 
they call life. Now—before me lies a peaceful period 
in which I can give to the world, in more or less helpful 
form, what all these things have meant to me. The 
time has come for me to make my contribution to 
enduring things. What shall it be?” 

Among the majority of people who think at all about 
the Fine Arts there is a belief that the artist is born 
and not made. [I believe that every individual descended 
from more or less intellectual forebears is gifted in one 
way or another. It is only a matter of finding out what 
the natural bent of the individual is and allowing him 
to pursue that bent in his early formative years. Par- 


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ents are incredibly careless and indifferent about study- 
ing the inclinations of their children. I know a man 
who is a brilliant writer to-day who was discouraged 
all during his younger years by a father who wanted 
him to be a business man. Success, it seems to me, 
depends entirely upon the force of character in the pur- 
suit of a career and not at all upon talent. The arts 
of painting and sculpture have, in our time, been sur- 
rounded by a tradition that they belonged, as profes- 
sions, to a chosen few. Unless one were born with 
some mystic indications of genius, one must not think 
of being an artist. As a matter of fact, often the most 
brilliant beginners in art are never heard of afterwards. 
On the other hand a slow, laborious worker may develop 
into a great artist. 

Art is one of the mysteries of life and no rules can 
be made about it. During the great movement of art 
among the Greeks, sculpture was looked upon as a 
simple profession that any child could be apprenticed 
to and no more difficult than any other calling. That 
is perhaps the reason that the Greeks produced so many 
masterpieces; and it rather strengthens me in my theory 
that every child in the public or private schools should 
study art—not from the “flat” but from nature. A 
child should be taught to draw the object that he is 
learning to spell. Often quite intelligent people say 
they have no talent because they cannot draw a line. 
Not being able to “draw a line” is not an indication of 
lack of talent; it is a confession of a stupid education. 


[291] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


Just think how much more difficult it is to learn to write 
letters and to form them into words and sentences than 
it is to sit down before a teapot and draw it on paper! 
This inclusion of drawing and painting and modeling 
in the education of every child naturally would not 
make of every child an artist, but it would result in the 
development of many ‘more artists than we have now; 
and it would certainly give a greater and wider appre- 
ciation of things artistic to the general public. 

I have often been asked why sculpture is considered 
one of the most difficult of all the professions and why 
it is that comparatively few students who undertake it 
arrive. It is a fact that, while there are hundreds of 
painters who make distinguished successes in America— 
where success in every human effort is open to the 
ambitious—the number of well-known sculptors can 
be counted on the fingers of two hands; I am almost 
inclined to say on the fingers of one hand. Why is 
this? The reason is perfectly simple and expressed in 
one word—memorials. The popular use of sculpture in 
America takes the form of commemorating our dead— 
our war heroes, our poets, our philanthropists, etc. In 
no country in the world is more honor paid to dead 
celebrities. But why wait until they are dead to begin 
honoring them? Why should our famous statesmen, 
generals, poets, and philanthropists not pose themselves 
for their portrait statues? Whatever these national 
heroes may have done to win the right to stand forth 
immortalized has, in most cases, been done long before 


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their death. But it is a tradition that a memorial 
should not even be whispered about until long after the 
death of the distinguished person. The sculptor is then 
selected, and after a mad scramble to gather together 
photographs and old clothes, he begins his work under 
the most disheartening circumstances—and the result is 
usually another bronze horror which more often than 
not arouses public disfavor. Often, after several such 
experiences, the discouraged sculptor gives up his pro- 
fession and turns to something else. 

Why shouldn’t this tradition of waiting until a man 
has died before his memorial is begun be put away with 
other childish things! Why shouldn’t our heroes pose 
for their statues and thus give the artist a chance to do 
works of art! When the time comes—if it ever does— 
when women will be as generally immortalized as men, 
the situation will be still worse. Just at present, for- 
tunately for women, men have almost a monopoly on 
public memorials in America, indeed all over the world 
—a fact which, so far as throwing light on the question 
of manly wisdom as it now exists, might be studied 
with profit. 

Many years ago, when I was in Japan, I was very 
much interested in a story Lafcadio Hearn had written, 
called “A Living God.” It was a tale of a simple man 
who risked everything to save a whole village from a 
tidal wave. The peasants wanted to honor this man in 
some way and at last it was decided that the highest 
honor they could bestow upon him was to declare him 


[293] 


MODELING MY LIFE 


a god—their idea in doing this being that the spirit in 
him that had made him willing to risk everything to 
save others was a divine spirit and should be worshiped 
as such. So they built a temple, engraved his name 
above the door and worshiped there with prayer and 
offerings. And all the time he went on living with his 
family in a little thatched house not far away. 

This story and the idea of honoring with some memo- 
rial a man before he was dead made a great impression 
on me—especially as I had spent so many long and 
dreary hours in my youth creating some sort of memo- 
rial for those who had been dead many years and who 
could not possibly get any satisfaction out of the fact 
that a work of art was to be erected to their memory. 
It struck me as a tremendously living and effective ges- 
ture to encourage a man who had done something help- 
ful to humanity while he was still alive. Of course we 
have got our medals and decorations and red ribbons 
and all such things to show our approval of what has 
been done, but it has been left to the Japanese to build 
a temple to a living man. 

This story returned very forcibly to me recently when 
I made my yearly pilgrimage to pay my respects to that 
American who has the finest of all records among 
American women during the War—Mildred Aldrich in 
her little house on the Marne. I was shocked when I 
was told that it was very probable that this house would 
soon fall into. the hands of just anybody at all and even- 
tually crumble to bits and leave behind it no memory 


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of the brave American woman who lived there through 
the very midst of the battle of the Marne and, assisted 
only by her equally brave French servant, Amélie, gave 
first aid to the wounded, food to the officers and splendid 
words of comfort and encouragement to every soldier 
that passed her gate. I learned that the lease of the 
little house was about to expire and that it was very 
likely that the spot might be entirely lost as a document 
of American bravery even during the lifetime of Mil- 
dred Aldrich. The Japanese story at once sprang into 
my mind. Why should not this little house become a 
memorial while there was still time to secure it! Why 
should not Miss Aldrich be given the pleasure of know- 
ing, during her lifetime, that her name is going to be 
handed down to posterity! She certainly deserves it 
more than Barbara Frietchie, who did nothing more than 
wave an American flag from her window. This sugges- 
tion was made, my idea was taken up with enthusiasm 
and already generous Americans are sending in checks 
to make the idea an accomplished fact. The house is 
to be bought and made into a landmark and the Mil- 
dred Aldrich Memorial is well started. 

While I am writing these last words I look up now 
and then and catch the peculiarly mocking smile of my 
little faun. He looks exactly as if he were asking me 
a question and awaiting an answer. When I lean for- 
ward and try to catch the meaning on his always smil- 
ing lips, I imagine him saying: 

‘Why are you so busily writing all those solemn words 


[295] 


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about war and color and memorials—you who have 
never done anything but gay creatures like me! If you 
really have all those definite ideas on so many subjects, 
why haven’t you been more serious in your profession! 
You, who criticize war monuments in your own country, 
why is it that you have shirked doing one yourself! 
Why is it that you create only happy, cheerful little 
things like me!” 

Of course questions like these demand much more 
serious replies than his gay smile suggests; and almost 
without being aware of it I launch forth on explana- 
tions. I recount to him the history of garden sculpture 
in America. [ tell him that the first manifestation con- 
sisted of iron dogs and stags—after which came lead 
fountains made of storks and cat-tails and one thing 
and another, all of them equally dreary—and that then 
followed an invasion of broken-down “old antiques,’’ or 
copies of them, transplanted from Rome, marble statues 
that had nothing to do with the American landscape or 
the American temperament. 

“You, my little faun child, and all your brothers and 
sisters and cousins created before you, may not always 
be important; in your turn you may be cast into the 
scrap heap; but at least you have helped to open up a 
vast field in American sculpture. You really don’t be- 
lieve—you can’t—that I should have been more useful 
to the world at large if I had done portraits of dead 
heroes in bronze Prince Alberts or in military uniforms! 
You, like every one else, would have turned away from 


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them with a shudder. Instead, in creating you, I have 
blazed a trail along which many American sculptors are 
now happily traveling. Garden sculpture in America 
has become an art in itself—and you are still leading 
others merrily along their way.” 

The tilted eyebrows lowered and my little faun gave 
me one fleeting but very straight glance; and then—I 
am almost sure—he nodded, as much as to say he under- 
stood at last the honest intentions of his creator. 


THE END 


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